The  New  Feed  ’Em. 


Why  Low  Tariffs  Mean  Low  Wages 

and 

No  Tariffs  Mean  No  Work 


By  BIRCH  HELMS 


Published  by 

THE  HOME  MARKET  CLUB 

Thomas  O.  Marvin,  Sec’y 
Summer  Street,  - Boston 


UNIVERSITY  OF 
ILLINOIS  LIBRARY 
AT  URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 

DAK  STREET 


imwwry 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY'  OF  ILLINOIS 

5 CCT1S14 


The  New  Feed  ’Em. 


Why  Low  Tariffs  Mean  Low  Wages 

and 

No  Tariffs  Mean  No  Work. 


By  BIECH  HELMS. 


Published  by 

THE  HOME  MARKET  CLUB 

Thomas  O.  Marvin,  Secy. 
Summer  Street,  - Boston 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2017  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign  Alternates 


i 


https://archive.org/details/newfeedemwhylowtOOhelm 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM. 

Why  Low  Tariffs  Mean  Low  Wages  and  No  Tariffs  Mean  No  Work. 

By  Birch  Helms. 


There  was  no  doubt  about  it.  Bill 
Cobb  was  down  and  out.  At  least  Bill 
knew  that  he  was,  if  no  one  else  in  the 
wide  world  did,  for  as  he  sat  in  the 
“smoker”  of  the  “Chicago  Express” 
with  not  a single  possession  to  his  name 
but  a railroad  ticket  and  some  loose 
change,  his  unfortunate  plight  was  more 
keenly  evident  than  ever  before.  The 
rapid  shifting  of  the  scenery  as  the  train 
thundered  ahead  only  revitalized  the 
swift  course  of  events  that  had  swal- 
lowed up  his  hard  earned  savings  and 
blasted  his  aspirations  for  a successful 
future.  Of  average  intelligence,  the  pos- 
sessor of  a strong,  sturdy  body  and  very 
willing  to  work  hard,  here  he  was  after 
a bitter  experience  of  two  years’  dura- 
tion without  a decent  suit  of  clothes  on 
his  back.  Whatever  fond  and  ambitious 
dreams  he  may  have  cherished  had  long 
ere  this  vanished  in  his  disheartening, 
disappointing  daily  search  for  a job,  for 
when  the  pangs  of  unsatisfied  hunger 
are  sharp,  little  time  can  be  devoted  to 
building  fantastic  castles  in  the  air. 
Absorbed  in  such  gloomy  recollections, 
Bill  was  the  picture  of  despair,  instantly 
attracting  the  attention  and  enlisting 
the  sympathy  of  a middle  aged  gentle- 
man who,  as  he  sat  upon  the  same  seat, 
detected  Bill  sadly  murmuring  as  if  to 
himself: 

“I  am  certainly  a flat,  dismal  failure.” 

“A  failure?”  echoed  the  middle  aged 
gentleman;  “well,  if  that  is  the  case,  tell 
me  about  it,  for  I am  a specialist  on 
failures.” 

Conscious  of  having  been  overheard 
and  realizing  that  he  presented  a sorry 
figure  in  his  soiled  and  crumpled 
clothes,  Bill  was  almost  ashamed  to 
look  around  at  his  fellow-passenger,  but 
when  he  did,  he  gazed  directly  into 
clear  blue  eyes,  which  twinkled  with 
such  a kindly  light,  that  whatever  re- 
sentment Bill  might  have  harbored  be- 


cause of  this  stranger’s  apparent  at- 
tempt to  pry  into  his  private  affairs  was 
completely  overcome  by  this,  the  first 
companionable,  friendly  glance  be- 
stowed upon  him  in  many  months. 

“Here  is  my  card;  my  name  is  Sul- 
livan, as  you  will  observe,”  continued 
the  middle  aged  gentleman,  handing 
Bill  his  business  card:  “I  have  been  a 
traveling  salesman  for  almost  thirty-five 
years.  Experience  has  taught  me  that 
business  men  do  not  devote  a lifetime 
of  hard  work  and  economy  to  building 
up  a business  and  reputation  and  will- 
ingly permit  them  to  be  swept  away, 
unless  conditions  force  them  to  fail. 
You  may  be  a poor  man,  young  sir,  but 
not  a dismal  failure.  Which  are  you, 
for  there  is  a vital  distinction?” 

Now  Bill  had  always  dreaded  the 
moment  when  he  might  be  required  to 
disclose  his  tale  of  woe.  In  days  by- 
gone, he  had  always  scoffed  at  hard  luck 
stories,  divulged  by  beggars  on  the 
street.  Why  should  others  be  any  less 
incredulous  than  he  had  been.  How- 
ever, here  at  last  was  an  opportunity  to 
learn  about  other  men  just  as  hapless 
as  himself,  and  from  one  who  knew 
them  personally.  Misery  loves  com- 
pany and  Bill  was  no  exception  to  the 
rule.  Heretofore  he  had  secretly  nur- 
tured his  disappointments  until  they 
conspired  to  embitter  him  towards  all 
whom  he  regarded  more  fortunate  than 
himself  but  perhaps  some  friendly  ad- 
vice at  this  juncture  might  extricate  him 
from  his  difficulties,  so  he  concluded 
that  it  would  be  wise  to  confide  in  his 
open-hearted  fellow-traveler. 

A Democratic  Tariff  Experience. 

“My  parents,”  began  Bill,  “were  immi- 
grants. They  settled  at  Minersville,  Pa., 
where  my  father  soon  obtained  employ- 
ment in  the  anthracite  coal  mines.  Al- 
though working  and  living  conditions, 


4 


THE  NEW  FEED  'EM 


as  well  as  wages,  could  have  been  im- 
proved upon  then,  yet  we  were  ten 
times  better  off  than  in  the  old  country. 
While  our  neighbors  spent  their  earn- 
ings freely,  our  family  saved  my  father’s 
wages,  so  that  when  he  died  a few  years 
ago,  there  was  a small  inheritance  for 
my  mother  and  us  children.  Thereupon, 
I decided  to  discontinue  my  work  in  the 
mines,  where  I had  started  at  the  age 
of  thirteen,  when  commencing  in  the 
collieries,  and  gradually  advanced  until 
at  the  age  of  thirty-three  I was  fire  boss. 
With  my  own  savings,  for  I had  accu- 
mulated a small  account  in  one  of  the 
local  savings’  banks,  and  with  the 
money  I inherited,  I planned  to  enter 
upon  the  manufacture  of  celluloid  col- 
lars, since  for  years  I had  been  care- 
fully studying  the  sales  of  these  collars 
while  working  in  the  evenings  at  a dry 
goods’  store  in  Minersville.” 

“Was  it  wise  for  you  to  discontinue 
your  mining  occupation  in  which  you 
must  have  been  proficient  to  undertake  a 
manufacturing  business  of  which  you 
knew  nothing,  save  perhaps  the  selling 
end?”  commented  the  traveling  sales- 
man. 

“But  I entered  into  a partnership 
with  an  uncle,  who  had  been  employed 
for  more  than  forty  years  in  celluloid 
factories  at  Arlington,  N.  J.,  and  Leom- 
inster, Mass.  He  was  the  superintend- 
ent of  a small  factory  in  Leominster, 
when  we  agreed  upon  our  partner- 
ship. He  had  the  manufacturing  ex- 
perience with  a little  money,  while  I 
contributed  more  money  with  an  experi- 
ence of  fifteen  years  in  selling  celluloid 
collars  to  miners,  who  were  to  be  our 
customers  throughout  the  country.” 

“Together  you  constituted  a practical, 
efficient  business  combination,”  replied 
the  traveling  salesman. 

“So  we  thought,”  rejoined  Bill,  “but 
as  you  will  observe  events  were  not 
favorable.  We  arranged  to  commence 
our  business  in  San  Francisco,  because 
of  the  small  competition  we  would  meet 
with  upon  the  Pacific  Coast,  and  because 
camphor,  the  chief  raw  material  in  the 
manufacture  of  celluloid,  could  be 
landed  at  our  factory  direct  from 
Japan,  thereby  saving  freight  charges 
across  the  country.” 


“Business  bad  or  good?”  asked  the 
traveling  salesman. 

“Business  should  have  been  flourish- 
ing after  all  the  precautions  we  had 
taken  against  failure,”  remarked  Bill 
reminisciently,  “but  we  relied  too 
strongly  upon  the  assertion  of  the 
Democratic  Party  when  it  stated  that  a 
low  revision  of  the  tariff  would  not  in- 
jure a single  legitimate  industry.  Our 
prices  were  low,  our  profits  very  small, 
while  the  celluloid  industry  is  divided 
among  hundreds  of  small  factories,  em- 
ploying only  from  ten  to  twenty-five 
workmen.  There  is  no  celluloid  trust. 
But  the  Democrats,  nevertheless,  cut 
low  the  duty  upon  finished  celluloid 
articles  while  a tariff  duty  was  placed 
upon  camphor.  They  cut  away  our  pro- 
tection upon  the  finished  celluloid  goods 
but  taxed  our  raw  material,  for  since 
camphor  could  not  be  produced  in  this 
country,  domestic  competition  had  no 
effect  upon  prices,  with  the  result  that 
Japan  immediately  added  the  duty  to  the 
original  price  of  camphor.” 

“Did  the  Democrats,  after  claiming  in 
the  last  election  that  they  would  place 
raw  materials  upon  the  free  list,  tax 
camphor — your  raw  material,  and  in 
addition  reduce  the  protection  upon 
your  celluloid  goods?”  exclaimed  the 
traveling  salesman  in  amazement. 

“Exactly,”  answered  Bill.  “They  got 
us  coming  and  going.  As  camphor 
comes  only  from  the  Island  of  Formosa 
in  Japan,  a tariff  duty  upon  it  would  not 
protect  a single  American  manufacturer 
but  it  did  force  the  Japanese  to  raise 
their  price  for  camphor.  On  the  other 
hand,  when  the  protection  was  taken 
away  from  our  finished  product,  Euro- 
pean countries  and  Japan  undersold  us 
in  our  own  markets,  because  they  paid 
their  labor  one-third  to  one-sixth  w'hat 
we  paid  ours,  thereby  having  a much 
smaller  cost  of  production.” 

“You  must  have  faced  a very  serious 
problem?”  suggested  the  traveling  sales- 
man. 

The  New  Freedom  Becomes  the  New 
Feed’Em. 

“We  reduced  our  prices  until  our 
goods  were  sold  below  cost,”  continued 
Bill.  “Our  workingmen  refused  to  take 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


5 


less  wages,  asserting  that  they  would 
not  and  could  not  come  down  to  the 
level  and  standard  of  living  that  prevail 
among  foreign  workmen.  There  was  no 
doubt  that,  as  President  Wilson  said, 
we  must  whet  our  wits  with  foreign 
competition,  but  he  neglected  to  state 
that  our  workingmen  would  also  be  re- 
quired to  compete  with  foreign  labor. 
Finally,  we  were  forced  to  reduce 
wages,  so  our  workmen  walked  out  of 
the  shop,  causing  us  to  close  down. 
Our  mill  was  sold  to  pay  the  debts  we 
contracted  and  I sailed  for  the  Argen- 
tine Republic  with  some  American  ma- 
chinists, who  were  looking  for  work. 
After  a search  of  five  or  six  weeks  for 
jobs,  with  the  best  offer  for  skilled  ma- 
chinists at  43  cents  a day  for  four  work- 
ing days  in  the  week,  and  ham  selling  at 
S1.60  a pound,  a ten  cent  box  of  sar- 
dines selling  at  $1.10,  and  all  other  eat- 
ables to  which  we  were  accustomed 
selling  as  high  in  proportion,  we  all 
came  back  by  steerage  instead  of  first 
class.  Conditions  in  Argentina  may  be 
inferred  from  this  item  in  the  Buenos 
Aires  Standard  of  July  21:  ‘In  June  8,000 
immigrants  arrived  and  28,000  emigrants 
left.  In  May  9,000  entered  and  24.000 
left.  Others  would  leave  if  they  could.’  ” 

“Why  did  you  not  remain  in  Cali- 
fornia or  at  least  return  to  the  coal 
mines  in  Pennsylvania,  instead  of  ex- 
perimenting in  South  America?”  in- 
quired the  traveling  salesman. 

“I  learned  that  the  Underwood  tariff 
law  had  injured  the  lumber,  mining, 
sugar  industries,  and  orange  and  lemon 
growing  in  California  more  than  the 
celluloid  business,”  responded  Bill, 
“while  the  industries  in  Pennsylvania 
were  running  but  a few  days  a week. 
There  was  little  demand  for  coal  be- 
cause of  closed  mills  and  a mild  winter, 
so  that  the  mines  were  shut  down.  It 
seemed  as  if  every  state  in  the  Union, 
except  a few  cotton  states  in  the  South, 
had  more  men  out  of  work  than  it  could 
take  care  of.  I understood  that  there 
were  to  be  large  crops,  but  it  would  be 
a half  year  before  farmers  would  need 
helpers  and  then  for  just  a couple  of 
months  during  harvest  time.  I wanted 
a steady  job,  not  a job  that  would  keep 
me  at  work  a couple  of  months  and  un- 


employed for  the  remainder  of  the 
year.” 

“It  is  true  that  business  conditions 
have  been  depressed,”  added  the  travel- 
ing salesman.  “One  never  appreciates 
how  extensive  this  depression  is  until 
he  has  traveled  throughout  the  country. 
The  present  wars  in  Europe  may  par- 
tially revive  business  in  order  to  supply 
the  needs  of  the  combatants  but  such  a 
stimulation  is  purely  temporary.  But  do 
not  let  me  interrupt  you.  Please  con- 
tinue the  account  of  your  experiences.” 

“Upon  my  arrival  in  New  York  City, 
I was  unable  to  locate  a job,  so  I went 
to  Leominster,  Mass.,  hoping  that  my 
uncle,  who  had  returned  there  direct 
from  San  Francisco,  could  assist  me.  I 
was  unsuccessful  there.  Without  a cent, 
I then  boarded  a freight  train  for  Bos- 
ton. I shall  never  forget  the  winter 
night  I arrived  in  Boston,  cold  and 
hungry.  After  walking  around  briskly  in 
order  to  keep  warm,  I found  room  on  a 
bench  between  two  other  occupants  and 
huddling  between  them  I tried  to  sleep. 
The  next  day,  I tramped  the  city,  look- 
ing for  work,  asking  at  cellar  doors  for 
a bite  to  eat.  But  labor  was  a drug  on 
the  market.  Finally,  a soup  kitchen  was 
opened,  so  I was  assured  of  one  meal 
every  day.  Two  weeks  ago,  the  man- 
ager of  the  soup  kitchen  secured  a job 
for  me  on  the  docks.  I worked  hard,  so 
yesterday  he  handed  me  this  railroad 
ticket  for  St.  Louis,  where  there  is  a 
position  open  for  me  as  a gardener.  I 
shall  remain  there  until  good  times  re- 
turn to  Pennsylvania  coal  mines  or  the 
celluloid  business.  Doubtless  the  Euro- 
pean wars  will  revive  business,  as  you 
say,  for  a short  time,  when  I might 
return.” 

A Farmer’s  Experience. 

“Pardon  me,  sirs,”  broke  in  a tall, 
loose-jointed  but  muscular  gentleman, 
who,  with  a young  man,  occupied  the 
seat  directly  in  front  of  Bill  and  the 
traveling  salesman,  “but  would  you  ob- 
ject if  I reversed  our  seat  so  that  my 
nephew  and  I might  listen  to  your  con- 
versation, which  I could  not  but  over- 
hear, and  in  which  I am  interested  in 
as  much  as  it  relates  to  business  condi- 
tions throughout  the  country.  I am  a 
farmer  from  the  West  and  this  young 
gentleman  is  my  nephew.  I have  been 


6 


THE  NEW  FEED  'EM 


discussing  the  tariff  question  with  him, 
citing  to  him  many  farming  failures 
under  Democratic  tariffs  similar  to  your 
experience  in  the  celluloid  industry. 
We  farmers  could  not  and  cannot  to- 
day compete  with  Canada,  South  Amer- 
ica or  foreign  countries  simply  because 
our  crops  are  usually  late  compared  with 
the  crops  in  other  countries,  while  our 
farm  help  and  farm  land  cost  many 
times  what  farm  help  and  farm  land 
cost  in  foreign  lands.  My  own  inability 
to  run  a farm  in  1893-96  under  the  last 
Democratic  tariff  constituted  the  last 
lesson  I wish  to  learn  under  non-pro- 
tective  tariffs,  for  I not  only  realized 
that  it  was  difficult  to  compete  with  the 
low  prices  of  foreign  farmers  but  that 
if  no  farm  products  should  come  into 
this  country  at  all,  the  fact  that  our  in- 
dustries were  idle  or  closed  through 
Democratic  free  trade  prevented  work- 
men from  buying  our  products  and 
consequently  our  farm  products  sold  at 
a sacrifice  without  benefiting  anyone. 
However,  my  nephew,  who  is  attending 
college  in  the  East,  has  not  yet  learned 
the  effort  and  the  trial  of  earning  a 
dollar,  so  he  honestly  believes  in  free 
trade.  Like  many  other  college  men, 
he  will  be  a free  trader  until  he  com- 
prehends how  difficult  it  is  to  succeed  in 
life  and  just  how  protective  tariffs  re- 
strict the  ruinous  competition  of  our 
working  people  with  low  paid  and 
humbly  housed  foreigners.” 

“We  will  be  pleased  to  have  you  join 
us,”  replied  Bill  and  the  traveling  sales- 
man simultaneously.  “Will  you  not  be 
seated?” 

“You  are  a protectionist,  I judge?” 
added  the  traveling  salesman  good 
naturedly,  when  the  farmer  and  the 
young  college  student  had  become  com- 
fortably seated. 

“I  am,  indeed,  sir,”  asserted  the 
farmer  earnestly.  “So  ought  every 
American  citizen  to  be.  I am  for  the 
full  dinner  pail.” 

“Oh,  rubbish,”  laughed  the  young  col- 
lege student.  “You  protectionists,  my 
dear  uncle,  always  play  to  the  gallery. 
You  never  rely  upon  reasonable  argu- 
ments but  endeavor  to  terrify  working- 
men, thereby  hoping  to  scare  them  into 
voting  for  a protective  tariff  with 


threats  of  hard  times,  no  work,  no 
wages,  starvation  and  ruin.  The  day  is 
now  past  when  our  intelligent  labor  can 
be  influenced  by  such  fraudulent  and  ex- 
travagant arguments.  Protective  tariffs 
have  departed  never  to  return,  until  it 
can  be  proven  that  the  farmer  and 
workingmen  will  benefit  under  them.” 

“To  convince  anyone  that  the  eco- 
nomic policy,  termed  protection,  is  of 
real  benefit  to  the  farmer  and  working- 
man, two  methods  are  possible,”  re- 
sponded the  farmer.  “The  first  method 
is  to  be  learned  through  argument  or 
from  books  and  is  defined  as  theoretical. 
The  other  method  must  be  learned  from 
the  observations  of  practical  experience 
and  might  be  termed  the  practical 
method.  The  two  methods  are  distin- 
guished from  each  other  by  designating 
them  as  theory  and  practice.  Bill  Cobb, 
as  his  story  illustrates,  has  learned  the 
benefits  derived  from  a protective  tariff 
by  endeavoring  to  operate  a business 
under  a tariff  that  is  not  protective.  His 
failure  has  been  his  lesson,  his  teaching 
has  been  from  the  daily  experiences  of 
his  life  and  business.  As  a college  stu- 
dent, you  can  be  convinced  only  by  the 
theoretical  method  or  by  reason.  Now 
theoretically  the  advantages  of  a protec- 
tive tariff  can  be  best  demonstrated  by 
comparing  the  national  prosperity  of 
the  country  under  protection  with  the 
widespread  depression  under  non-pro- 
tective  tariffs.” 

Tariff  Laws  and  Custom  Duties. 

“May  I ask  what  is  your  definition  of 
a tariff  and  what  is  the  precise  dif- 
ference between  free  trade,  tariff  for 
revenue,  and  protective  tariffs?”  queried 
the  traveling  salesman. 

“A  tariff,  sir,”  responded  the  farmer, 
“is  the  amount  of  money  that  our  gov- 
ernment requires  a foreign  merchant  to 
pay  to  it  before  he  can  land  his  products 
upon  our  shores  and  sell  them  in  our 
markets.  He  must  pay  us  for  the  privi- 
lege of  selling  in  our  markets  since  we 
have  built  up  the  United  States  from  a 
wilderness,  developing  the  most  profit- 
able market  and  the  best  purchasing 
public  in  the  world.  There  can  be  no 
justifiable  reason  why  our  people  should 
allow  a foreign  merchant,  who  employs 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


7 


foreign  workmen  and  does  not  even 
contribute  to  the  support  of  our  govern- 
ment, to  receive  the  benefits  of  our  mar- 
kets, unless  he  pays  us  for  them.  The 
tariff  law,  which  is  passed  by  Congress, 
is  thus  a list  or  schedule  of  such  im- 
ported articles  that  must  pay  to  the 
government  this  amount  of  money, 
otherwise  known  as  custom  duties.  As 
you  all  know,  the  foreign  merchant 
sending  goods  into  this  country  is 
called  an  importer  and  when  goods  are 
sent  out  of  the  country,  they  are  said 
to  be  exported.  Duties  are  specific 
when  levied  for  a certain  specified 
amount  of  money,  as  io  cents  per  yard 
or  per  pound.  Ad  valorem  duties  are 
levied  according  to  the  value  of  the 
goods  or  upon  a percentage  basis,  such 
as  io  per  cent,  of  the  declared  value. 
Compound  duties  are  a combination  of 
both  specific  and  ad  valorem  duties. 
Thus  the  rates  of  a tariff  are  specific, 
ad  valorem  and  compound,  but  there 
are  only  two  kinds  of  tariffs,  protective 
and  for  revenue.” 

“What  becomes  of  this  money,  col- 
lected by  the  government,”  cautiously 
inquired  Bill,  for  he  had  followed  the 
farmer’s  remarks  only  with  considerable 
difficulty. 

“The  tariff  or  custom  duties  constitute 
a large  portion  of  our  national  revenue, 
used  to  pay  the  current  expenses  of  the 
nation.  In  1910,  our  total  revenue  was 
$899,640,373,  while  our  custom  duties 
amounted  to  $333)683,445.  In  1912  our 
total  revenue  was  $938,522,481,  while  our 
custom  duties  amounted  to  $311,321 ,672. 
The  United  States  must  have  sufficient 
money  to  meet  its  current  expenses  and 
maturing  obligations,  for  our  country 
has  but  little  income,  except  what  it 
secures  by  internal  revenue  taxes  or  by 
duties  upon  imported  goods.  Since  di- 
rect taxation,  with  the  exception  of  in- 
come taxes,  is  not  seriously  favored, 
much  of  our  revenue  must  come  from 
taxing  foreigners,  or  from  custom 
duties.” 

Free  Trade. 

“What  is  the  distinction  between  free 
trade  and  a tariff  for  revenue?”  interro- 
gated a short,  thick  set  gentleman,  who 
had  walked  over  to  the  group  from 
across  the  aisle,  and  leaning  over  the 


shoulder  of  the  traveling  salesman,  now 
introduced  himself  as  Mr.  Noss  of  New 
Bedford,  Mass.,  an  executive  officer  in 
the  United  Textile  Workers  of  America. 

“Free  trade,”  continued  the  farmer,  “is 
an  economic  status  where  no  tariff  laws 
whatsoever  exist.  There  is  no  restric- 
tion in  the  form  of  custom  duties  im- 
posed upon  trade  or  commerce.  Trade 
is  as  free  and  as  open  as  between  the 
several  states  of  the  Union.  Under  free 
trade,  it  is  claimed  that  everyone  would 
be  employed  at  that  occupation  for 
which  he  is  best  fitted.  There  would  be 
a survival  of  the  fittest.  Before  the 
world  was  civilized  free  trade  existed 
everywhere.  To  return  to  free  trade 
would  mean  that  the  entire  world  would 
soon  be  reduced  to  the  same  level  from 
which  it  came,  but  it  is  doubtful  whether 
any  modern  nation  would  be  willing  to 
return  to  such  conditions.  No  country 
of  any  prominence  or  civilization  is  to- 
day without  tariff  duties,  except  semi- 
barbarous  and  savage  races.  It  was 
Napoleon  Bonaparte  who  said:  ‘If  a 
nation  were  made  of  adamant,  it  could 
not  stand  up  under  free  trade.’  George 
Washington  said:  ‘Harmony  and  lib- 
eral intercourse  with  all  nations  may  be 
recommended  by  humanity  but  we 
should  constantly  keep  in  view  that  it  is 
folly  in  one  nation  to  look  for  disinter- 
ested favors  from  another.  There  can 
be  no  greater  error  than  to  expect  or 
calculate  upon  real  favors  from  nation 
to  nation.  It  is  an  illusion,  which  ex- 
perience must  cure,  which  just  pride 
ought  to  discard.’  James  Madison  said: 
‘The  theory  which  would  leave  to  the 
sagacity  and  interest  of  individuals  the 
development  of  industry  and  resources, 
supposes  that  all  nations  concur  in  a 
perfect  freedom  of  commercial  inter- 
course. But  this  golden  age  of  free 
trade  has  not  yet  arrived.  A nation 
leaving  its  foreign  trade  to  regulate  it- 
self might  soon  find  it  regulated  by 
other  nations  into  a subserviency  to  a 
foreign  interest.  Rather  than  be  de- 
pendent upon  foreign  sources  of  supply, 
let  us  favor  internal  and  independent 
sources  instead,  and  let  the  general  rule 
of  consulting  cheapness  alone,  because 
foreigners,  for  want  of  a ready  and  prof- 
itable market  at  home,  have  shipped 
their  goods  into  the  United  States  at 


8 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


prices  below  their  current  values  at  the 
place  of  manufacture.’  Thus  with  Na- 
poleon, Washington  and  Madison  op- 
posing free  trade,  it  is  apparent  that 
other  statesmen  realize  the  disadvan- 
tages attending  its  restoration  through- 
out the  world,  particularly  since  Demo- 
cratic free  trade  principles  have  abso- 
lutely destroyed  our  great  merchant 
marine  and  shipping  of  earlier  days.” 

Tariffs  for  Revenue. 

“How  do  you  account  for  the  fact  that 
England  is  called  a free  trade  country?” 
observed  the  young  college  student. 

“Because  free  trade  and  a tariff  for 
revenue  are  regarded  as  identical  in 
many  ways.  In  reality,  England  has  a 
tariff  for  revenue,  which  as  its  name 
indicates,  is  levied  for  the  purpose  of 
raising  revenue  only  to  help  pay  the  ex- 
penses of  government.  The  supporters 
of  this  form  of  a tariff  law,  now  having 
a doubtful  majority  in  Great  Britain,  all 
believe  in  free  trade  theoretically,  but  as 
they  must  have  money  to  run  their  gov- 
ernment, they  consider  a revenue  tariff 
as  a necessary  evil.  If  they  could  ob- 
tain revenue  in  other  directions  or  by 
other  means,  all  custom  duties  and  tariff 
would  be  abolished,  for  since  all  gov- 
ernment expenses  would  be  paid  from 
other  sources,  tariffs  could  be  sup- 
planted by  free  trade.  Revenue  duties 
are  imposed  upon  those  products  that 
are  usually  not  produced  at  home;  pro- 
tective duties  are  placed  on  articles  that 
are  produced  at  home.  In  England,  the 
necessities  of  the  poor,  such  as  tea, 
sugar,  coffee  and  tobacco  pay  the  larger 
share  of  this  revenue,  with  the  result 
that  revenue  tariffs  directly  weigh  upon 
the  poor,  for  tariff  taxes  in  England  are 
80  cents  per  capita  more  than  in  United 
States.  However,  let  me  add  that  after 
the  present  European  wars  have  been 
terminated,  England  will  again  become 
a strong  protective  tariff  country  in 
order  to  protect  her  commercial  in- 
terests.” 

“Do  the  Democrats,  who  publicly 
maintain  that  they  stand  for  a revenue 
tariff,  actually  believe  in  free  trade?” 
asked  the  traveling  salesman  sceptically. 

“If  they  are  consistent,  they  believe 
in  free  trade  for  the  United  States,”  an- 


swered the  farmer.  “President  Wilson 
and  Mr.  Champ  Clark  believe  in  abso- 
lute free  trade  while  most  Democrats 
agree  with  Senator  Hollis  of  New 
Hampshire,  Senator  Thomas  of  Colo- 
rado, and  Senator  Williams  of  Missis- 
sippi, when  they  continually  declare  in 
the  United  States  Senate  that  the  Demo- 
cratic party,  if  retained  in  power,  will 
soon  cut  the  tariff  to  a free  trade  basis.” 

“A  lot  those  gentlemen  know  about 
running  a mill,  or  a farm,”  caustically 
commented  Bill.  “They  would  not  be 
so  eager  to  place  our  workingmen  and 
women  in  competition  with  foreign 
labor  if  they  had  ever  had  any  practical 
business  experience.  Our  country 
would  be  suffering  terribly  today  if  free 
trade  instead  of  protective  tariffs  had 
prevailed  since  1896.  Our  dependence 
upon  Europe  at  the  present  time  for 
supplies  would  mean  destruction.” 

“Correct  you  are,  sir,”  admitted  the 
labor  leader.  “Those  well-meaning 
gentlemen  know  more  how  to  tell  us  in 
what  manner  to  run  our  business  but 
less  how  to  do  it  themselves.  It  is  just 
the  difference  between  theory  and  prac- 
tice, for  it  is  one  thing  to  tell  how  to 
accomplish  a result  but  quite  another 
matter  to  actually  effect  it.” 

Protective  Tariffs. 

“What  do  Republicans  and  Progres- 
sives stand  for,”  testily  inquired  an  aris- 
tocratic, silver-haired  gentleman,  who 
had  joined  the  party  and  introduced 
himself  as  a gentleman  from  Missis- 
sippi, but  in  appearance  bearing  a 
marked  resemblance  to  that  dignified 
character,  popularly  known  as  a Ken- 
tucky Colonel.  “Might  I ask  what  their 
position  upon  the  tariff  question  is,  so 
as  to  be  perfectly  fair  by  permitting 
these  gentlemen  to  compare  their  posi- 
tion with  that  of  the  Democratic  Party.” 

“Certainly,”  responded  the  farmer, 
“they  advocate  the  maintenance  of  a 
protective  tariff,  which  as  its  name  im- 
plies, aims  to  protect  the  American 
farmer,  workingman  and  manufacturer 
from  disastrous  foreign  competition.  It 
protects  us  in  our  home  trade  by  making 
a taxpayer  of  every  foreigner  who  sends 
us  goods  and  also  shields  our  own 
labor  and  skill  from  the  underfed  labor 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


9 


and  underpaid  skill  of  every  other  coun- 
try in  the  world.  It  compels  the  for- 
eign merchant  to  pay  into  the  U.  S. 
Treasury  what  he  has  saved  by  not  pay- 
ing his  working  people  as  much  as  our 
workmen  receive.  Protectionists  main- 
tain that  since  the  foreign  merchant 
pays  much  less  for  his  labor  than  we 
do,  he  can  make  his  goods  for  much  less 
than  we  can  in  as  much  as  the  labor 
cost  in  farming  and  manufacturing  con- 
stitutes by  far  the  largest  proportion  of 
the  final  cost  of  production.  If  foreign 
goods  are  then  sold  in  our  markets  at 
lower  prices  than  our  goods  can  be  sold 
for,  they  necessarily  will  be  purchased 
instead  of  our  goods.  This  lessens  the 
demand  for  our  merchandise,  conse- 
quently our  mills  must  close  down  and 
work  and  wages  must  cease.  The  con- 
tinuation of  such  an  economic  policy 
produces  unemployment  and  hard  times, 
for  the  commodities  that  our  working- 
men and  working  women  once  made 
will  then  be  produced  by  foreigners.” 

“Are  not  all  excessively  high  duties 
protective  tariff  duties?”  interrupted  the 
gentleman  from  Mississippi. 

“By  no  means,”  rejoined  the  farmer. 
“Protective  tariff  duties  may  be  either 
high  or  low,  so  may  tariffs  for  revenue. 
Many  duties  in  Democratic  tariffs  are  as 
high  if  not  higher  than  duties  in  Re- 
publican tariffs.  Under  protection,  high 
duties  are  imposed  upon  foreign  goods 
only  when  such  goods  are  being  made 
in  this  country,  or  upon  competitive 
commodities.  Under  tariffs  for  revenue, 
high  duties  are  imposed  upon  articles 
not  manufactured  in  this  country,  for  in 
this  manner  sufficient  revenue  is  ob- 
tained from  the  wares  which  must  be 
imported.” 

Protection  vs.  Free  Trade. 

“How  does  the  protective  tariff  oper- 
ate compared  with  free  trade?”  queried 
Bill,  endeavoring  to  relieve  the  visible 
embarrassment  of  the  gentleman  from 
Mississippi,  who  had  always  been  con- 
vinced that  protective  duties  must  nec- 
essarily be  high  duties. 

“Protection  means  American  markets 
for  American  taxpayers,  but  free  trade 
means  American  markets  for  foreign 
taxpayers,”  answered  the  farmer.  “Re- 
cently the  Democrats  have  undertaken  a 


campaign  to  capture  foreign  markets. 
In  1910  the  manufactured  products  of 
our  people  amounted  to  $20,000,000,000. 
Of  this,  $2,000,000,000  found  a market 
abroad,  while  $18,000,000,000  was  con- 
sumed at  home.  It  should  be  our  en- 
deavor to  extend  our  dollar  market  by 
every  means  in  our  power,  but  this 
should  not  be  done  at  the  sacrifice  of 
our  greater  market,  the  nine  dollar 
market.  We  shall  never  be  stronger 
abroad  by  making  ourselves  weaker  at 
home,  for  a revenue  tariff  or  free  trade 
never  built  a factory  in  the  United 
States,  never  opened  a mine,  never  built 
a fire  in  a furnace,  but  they  have  more 
than  once  extinguished  fires  built  under 
protective  tariffs.  A revenue  tariff  as 
well  as  free  trade,  is  primarily  based 
upon  large  importations  and  every  dol- 
lar’s worth  of  goods  imported  means  a 
dollar’s  worth  less  made  by  us.” 

“But  your  arguments  are  against  the 
continuance  of  protective  tariffs,  not  for 
them,”  exclaimed  the  young  college  stu- 
dent, “for  if  I can  buy  goods  or  grocer- 
ies at  lower  prices  from  foreign  mer- 
chants than  I can  from  our  merchants, 
why  is  it  not  good  business  for  me  to 
pursue  such  a policy?  To  buy  in  the 
cheapest  market  and  sell  in  the  dearest 
will  certainly  reduce  the  cost  of  living 
in  a very  short  time.” 

“How  can  we  buy  commodities  when 
we  are  not  earning  money  to  buy  them 
with?”  asked  Bill  very  seriously.  “If 
the  foreign  merchant  wins  our  markets, 
as  you  now  propose  he  shall  do  and  also 
retains  his  own  markets  by  means  of 
protective  tariffs,  where  can  we  sell  the 
goods  that  our  working  people  produce? 
Where  will  we  obtain  money  to  buy  in 
the  cheapest  market,  when  foreigners 
are  earning  wages  instead  of  us?  You 
may  be  certain  that  no  foreign  nation 
will  surrender  its  market  to  us,  particu- 
larly if  we  are  too  weak  to  retain  our 
own  markets.  During  the  last  year.  I 
have  seen  more  bargains  in  food  and 
clothes  than  ever  before  in  my  lifetime, 
but  I could  not  bother  about  low  prices 
when  I was  not  earning  enough  money 
to  buy  a square  meal.” 

“Why  could  you  not  earn  money  like 
anybody  else?”  retorted  the  young  col- 
lege student,  somewhat  disconcerted  by 
Bill’s  remarks  as  he  realized  that  one 


IO 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


well  established  fact  in  life’s  experi- 
ence more  than  outweighs  myriads  of 
delicately  spun  theories. 

Consumers  Must  be  First  Producers. 

“Ah,”  laughed  the  farmer,  good 
naturedly,  “that  is  the  weak  point  in  the 
elaborate  policies  of  free  trade  and  tar- 
iffs for  revenue.  Their  supporters  can- 
not see  far  enough  ahead  to  understand 
that  if  we  buy  from  foreign  merchants 
because  of  their  low  prices  and  cheap 
labor,  we  must  gradually  lessen  the  de- 
mand for  our  own  American  products, 
until  ultimately  our  mills  must  close 
down  and  labor  be  unemployed.  Where 
there  is  no  work  there  can  be  no  wages. 
Where  there  are  no  wages  or  reduced 
wages,  buying  capacity  must  diminish  in 
proportion  to  earning  capacity,  so  finally 
our  working  people  are  anxious  to  secure 
merely  enough  to  provide  for  the  barest 
necessities  of  life.  You  cannot  expect 
to  give  our  business  to  foreigners  by 
taking  the  work  from  our  own  people 
and  then  ask  them  why  they  have  no 
money,  when  they  are  out  of  work. 
Low  prices  and  no  work  are  not  attrac- 
tive to  American  labor,  pa  icularly 
when  once  the  foreigner  obtains  a firm 
hold  upon  our  markets  and  has  us  in  his 
power,  thus  enabling  him  to  raise  his 
prices  just  as  he  pleases.  Democrats 
assert  that  our  workingmen  must  com- 
pete with  the  producers  of  the  world  in 
order  to  provide  the  consumer  with  arti- 
cles at  the  lowest  price.  The  lowest 
price  (with  them)  is  the  one  great  aim, 
but  prices  are  no  lower  today  than  under 
Republican  protection.  Prices  before 
the  European  wars  commenced  did  not 
decline  but  continued  to  go  higher  than 
prices  under  Mr.  Taft’s  administration. 
However,  the  mere  idea  of  low  prices 
blinds  them  to  the  results  of  actual  ex- 
perience. A price  low  in  dollars  and 
cents  must  be  considered  in  connection 
with  the  consumer’s  ability  to  pay  the 
price.  Democrats  consider  us  all  as 
consumers,  as  if  it  were  not  necessary 
for  us  to  produce  before  we  consume. 
You  cannot  divide  the  nation  into  pro- 
ducers and  consumers  when  primarily 
the  consumer  must  be  a producer.  The 
Democrat  keeps  his  eye  fixed  on  the 
price,  while  the  protectionist  claims  that 


prices  under  protection  will  come  down 
through  competition,  so  he  fixes  his  eye 
upon  work  and  wages,  believing  that 
you  can  spend  no  more  than  you  earn 
no  matter  whether  prices  are  high  or 
low.  Abraham  Lincoln  said:  ‘The  con- 
dition of  a nation  is  not  best  whenever 
it  can  buy  the  cheapest,  for  if  it  is  com- 
pelled to  sell  correspondingly  cheap 
nothing  is  gained.  We  must  not  aim 
towards  buying  cheap  and  selling  dear, 
but  to  have  constant  employment  which 
can  be  secured  only  by  ample,  steady 
and  certain  markets  to  sell  the  products 
of  our  labor  in.’  Cheapness,  therefore, 
to  the  consumer  means  that  as  a pro- 
ducer he  must  compete  freely  with  the 
worst  paid  labor  of  any  and  every 
country,  so  that  under  tariffs  for  rev- 
enue and  free  trade,  cheap  goods  mean 
cheap  men  and  women.  The  cheapness 
of  free  trade  and  revenue  tariffs  has 
undermined  the  Welsh  tin-plate  indus- 
try, the  Irish  lace  industry  and  the  Eng- 
lish steel  industry.  Upon  this  theory  of 
free  trade  cheapness,  England  is  gradu- 
ally being  transformed  from  the  work 
shop  of  the  world  to  the  sweat  shop  of 
the  world.” 

Protection  Means  High  Wages. 

“Is  it  true  that  foreign  workmen  re- 
ceive less  than  do  our  own  working 
people?”  interrupted  the  traveling  sales- 
man. 

“Yes,  indeed,”  replied  the  farmer.  “In 
Japan,  a laborer  must  work  6 1/2  days, 
in  Italy  4 1/4  days,  in  Austria  3 days,  in 
France  3 days,  in  Germany  2 5/6  days 
and  in  England,  the  highest  wage  coun- 
try in  Europe,  2 1/2  days  to  earn  as 
much  as  in  one  day  here  in  the  United 
States.  The  Tariff  Board,  in  its  report 
upon  foreign  cotton,  woolen  and  paper 
industries  showed  conclusively  that 
wages  were  much  higher  in  this  country 
than  elsewhere.  Recently  the  British 
Board  of  Trade,  under  the  direction  of 
a free  trade  official,  stated  in  a compre- 
hensive report  upon  wages  and  the  cost 
of  living  throughout  the  world,  that 
American  workmen  receive  130  per  cent, 
more  in  wages  than  do  Englishmen, 
while  it  costs  us  but  53  per  cent,  more 
to  live.  President  Samuel  Gompers  of 
the  American  Federation  of  Labor, 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


says:  ‘My  facts  indicate  (1911)  that 

money  wages  in  America  in  many 
trades  are  double  those  paid  abroad. 
Whether  the  cost  of  living  in  America 
is  greater  to  the  workingman  depends 
entirely  upon  the  standard  of  living  he 
adopts  while  in  America.  If  he  volun- 
tarily lives  the  life  of  self-denial,  that 
he  compulsorily  lived  in  his  native  land, 
his  outlay  will  remain  about  the  same. 
Even  then  he  will  hardly  be  able  to 
escape  gaining  something  from  the  su- 
perior supply  of  good  things  in  Amer- 
ica.’ You  must  therefore  conclude  from 
these  facts  which  I have  stated  that 
wages  are  higher  in  this  country  than 
abroad  and  if  what  I have  stated  might 
be  questioned,  the  fact  that  the  emigra- 
tion of  foreign  workmen  to  United 
States  has  been  continually  on  the 
increase  should  indicate  that  better 
working  and  living  as  well  as  wage 
conditions  are  an  incentive  for  them  to 
cross  the  ocean.” 

“Why  should  England,  which  is  prac- 
tically a free  trade  country,  pay  more  to 
its  workmen  than  do  all  other  protective 
tariff  countries,  except  the  United 
States?”  asked  the  young  college  stu- 
dent? “Is  not  the  difference  in  wages 
between  the  United  States  and  England 
due  to  the  fact  that  we  are  comparatively 
an  undeveloped  country,  making  labor 
scarce  and  wages  higher?” 

“English  wages  are  higher  than  those 
of  other  protective  tariff  countries  except 
the  United  States  because  she  has  been 
established  for  years  in  a commanding 
trade  position  and  also  because  English 
labor  unions  have  forced  wages  higher 
each  year,”  said  the  farmer.  “But  while 
many  are  benefiting  from  these  wages, 
there  are  many  more  who  are  unem- 
ployed and  do  not  benefit.  England  has 
attained  her  present  wage  scale  only 
after  centuries  under  protection,  while 
Germany  and  France  within  a score  of 
years  have  almost  equalled  her  wage 
level,  and  other  protective  tariff  coun- 
tries are  making  rapid  progress  towards 
higher  wages.” 

Are  We  More  Efficient  Than  For- 
eigners? 

“Although  wages  are  higher  in  the 
United  States  than  in  other  countries 


1 1 

and  labor  is  the  principal  item  in  the 
cost  of  production,”  broke  in  the  young 
college  student,  “nevertheless  our  work- 
men are  more  skilled  than  foreign  work- 
men. In  an  hour  we  turn  out  so  much 
more  product  than  foreigners  do  that  the 
difference  in  quantity  and  quality  of  our 
commodities  offsets  the  lower  wages  and 
longer  hours  prevailing  abroad.  We  pro- 
duce as  much  in  eight  hours  as  foreign- 
ers do  in  twelve.” 

“That  is  not  correct,”  exclaimed  the 
labor  leader.  “It  is  an  argument  em- 
ployed by  persons  who  have  never  seen 
foreign  people  at  work.  Although  we 
might  at  one  time  have  produced  more 
for  each  unit  of  the  day  because  of  our 
machinery,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
American  machinery  manufacturers  are 
now  establishing  their  machines  in  for- 
eign mills,  erecting  factories  throughout 
the  world  and  maintaining  a large  corps 
of  officials  to  teach  foreign  workmen  the 
proper  operation  of  these  machines.” 

“But  how  about  the  ability  and  effi- 
ciency of  the  foreign  workman  himself?” 
interrupted  the  traveling  salesman. 

“The  foreigner  inherits  his  trade  train- 
ing from  many  preceding  generations, 
since  abroad  a trade  is  handed  down 
from  father  to  son,”  replied  the  labor 
leader.  “Further,  he  is  required  to  serve 
a long  apprenticeship,  sometimes  a 
dozen  years,  before  he  is  admitted  as  a 
member  of  a trade.  What  textile  opera- 
tive is  therefore  better  equipped  than  the 
English  cotton  or  woolen  worker? 
What  iron  or  steel  workman  is  better 
than  the  German?  What  artisan  can 
make  superior  lace  to  that  of  the  Irish 
spinner,  or  lay  claim  to  more  finished 
work  than  the  French  shoe  maker  or  the 
Chinese  silk  fabricator?  France  can  take 
our  cotton  and  Germany  our  copper  and 
fashion  them  into  wearing  apparel  and 
utensils  that  surpass  in  skill  and  ingenu- 
ity the  work  of  any  other  country.  Re- 
cently, an  English  firm  bid  $34,000  for  a 
contract  to  supply  high  grade  bunting  to 
our  navy  when  our  factories  could  not 
produce  a similar  high  grade  of  bunting 
for  less  than  $44,000.  Progress  and  effi- 
ciency with  industrious  work  have  devel- 
oped farming  abroad  to  such  an  extent 
that  although  favored  by  climate  and 
natural  conditions,  we  produce  but  one- 


12 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


half  as  much  crop  per  acre  as  Germany 
and  England,  while  the  United  States  and 
Russia  fall  into  the  lowest  class  of  food 
producers  per  acre.  When  you  under- 
stand that  more  than  75  per  cent,  of  our 
public  school  pupils  leave  our  schools  at 
the  age  of  14  to  go  to  work  without  any 
trade  or  vocational  training  whatsoever 
and  many  foreign  emigrants  of  little 
education  also  enter  our  mills,  then  you 
will  realize  that  the  American  workman 
is  often  under  a serious  handicap,  instead 
of  having  an  advantage  with  which  to 
start  his  life  work.” 

“Do  not  government  reports  at  Wash- 
ington prove  that  the  units  of  produc- 
tion for  each  American  workingman  rise 
higher  than  those  of  the  foreign  work- 
man?” retorted  the  young  college  stu- 
dent. 

“Our  government  investigators  have 
never  been  successful  in  ascertaining 
units  or  costs  of  production  in  foreign 
mills,  simply  because  the  foreign  mer- 
chant is  unwilling  to  reveal  his  business 
secrets  to  any  tariff  agent  with  the  prob- 
ability that  his  cost  figures  may  be  di- 
vulged to  his  competitors  throughout  the 
world,”  responded  the  labor  leader. 

“You  certainly  do  not  place  much  con- 
fidence in  our  American  working  peo- 
ple,” rejoined  the  young  college  student. 
“If  you  are  a labor  leader,  why  not  en- 
courage American  labor  and  not  humili- 
ate it.” 

“National  pride,  my  young  sir,”  seri- 
ously said  the  labor  leader,  “must  not 
blind  us  to  facts  as  they  exist.  Now  the 
protective  tariff  seems  to  me  to  mean 
just  as  much  a closed  shop  to  American 
workmen  in  their  competition  with  for- 
eign workmen  as  does  the  labor  union  to 
organized  employes  in  our  country. 
Protection  means  a closed  shop  for 
American  workmen  against  the  world.” 

Does  Protection  Benefit  our  Working 
People? 

“But  the  American  workingman  does 
not  actually  receive  the  benefit  of  this 
protection,”  suggested  the  gentleman 
from  Mississippi.  “His  employer  appro- 
priates the  larger  share  of  the  tariff 
benefit  for  himself.  What  advantages  do 
the  miners  in  Colorado  and  the  mill 
hands  in  Lawrence  and  Paterson  receive 
from  the  operation  of  protective  tariffs?” 


“The  Census  Bulletin  of  Manufactures 
for  1910,”  answered  the  labor  leader, 
“shows  that  employes  in  this  country 
receive  about  40  per  cent,  of  the  value 
which  they  add  to  a product  in  making 
it,  while  the  manufacturer  receives  10 
per  cent,  of  this  value,  out  of  which 
wear  and  tear  and  salaries,  etc.,  must  be 
met.  The  majority  of  the  miners  in 
Colorado  receive  from  $4  to  $5  a day  but 
in  the  old  country  they  would  receive 
only  from  50  cents  to  $1  a day.  The 
wages  in  Lawrence  and  Paterson  run 
from  $8  to  $22  a week  as  compared  with 
from  $2  to  $12  a week  in  foreign  lands. 
In  case  any  employer,  however,  does  not 
share  the  benefits  of  protection  with  his 
workmen  then  our  labor  unions  demand 
it.” 

“Does  every  American  workingman 
and  woman  require  this  protection  from 
foreign  competition?”  observed  Bill. 
“How  about  the  railroad  man,  the  brick- 
layer, the  carpenter,  the  plasterer, 
plumber,  stone  mason,  moulder,  painter, 
barbers  and  clerks  in  banks  and  stores?” 

“These  trades,”  remarked  the  labor 
leader,  “do  not  require  protection,  for 
they  are  protected  from  foreign  compe- 
tition by  geographical  and  natural  con- 
ditions. They  never  come  in  direct  com- 
petition with  foreigners.  The  results  of 
such  labor  as  theirs  cannot  be  trans- 
ported across  the  ocean  and  placed  side 
by  side  with  the  product  of  American 
farms  anl  mills  on  the  shelves  and 
counters  of  American  stores,  thereby 
coming  into  immediate  competition  with 
the  product  of  American  industry.  The 
same  absolute  protection  shields  the 
newspaper,  the  lawyer,  the  engineer,  the 
physician,  etc.  But  all  these  workers 
are  dependent  for  work  and  wages  upon 
our  mills  and  our  farms.  In  turn  the 
prosperity  of  our  mills  and  farms  is  de- 
pendent upon  their  protection  from  for- 
eign competition.  Consequently  the 
basis  of  national  prosperity  is  the  main- 
tenance of  a protective  tariff.” 

Oriental  Competition. 

“Should  competition  with  Japan  and 
China  be  seriously  considered  in  the 
continuance  of  a protective  tariff  pol- 
icy?” asked  Bill  of  the  labor  leader. 

“Yes,”  he  replied.  “Until  the  Russo- 
Japanese  war,  we  always  regarded  Ori- 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


13 


entals  as  inferior  to  us,  even  unworthy 
of  association.  But  certain  labor  unions 
have  for  years  realized  the  danger  of 
skillful  competition  from  the  Orient,  so 
in  1902  they  procured  the  passage  of  the 
Chinese  Exclusion  Act.  Today  Cali- 
fornia  excludes  Japanese  from  her 
shores  because  of  the  large  farm  col- 
onies they  have  established  and  the  low 
wages  for  which  they  do  efficient  work. 
The  General  Electric  Co.  is  now  com- 
pleting the  electrification  of  Japan  and 
the  poorest  houses  are  now  lighted  by 
electricity.  There  is  a watch  factory  at 
Yanagishinia  which  produces  400,000 
pieces  annually,  almost  equal  to  the  best 
watches  made  in  New  England  but  pay- 
ing its  workmen  about  70  sen  or  35  cents 
a day.  A great  deal  of  the  land  used 
formerly  in  India  and  Japan  for  poppy 
growing  has  been  diverted  to  cotton 
growing  and  cotton  factories  are  being 
erected  near  by  these  fields.  China  is 
rich  in  mineral  deposits  and  is  rapidly 
becoming  a modern  industrial  nation. 
Ex-President  Eliot  of  Harvard  stated 
recently  that  the  Chinese  impress  one 
with  their  industry,  patience  and  cheer- 
fulness as  workers  while  the  Japanese 
are  exceptionally  skillful  in  spinning  and 
weaving  cotton.  As  a result  of  his  trip 
through  the  Orient,  he  became  con- 
vinced that  the  Orientals  would  soon 
demand  a prominent  share  of  our  trade.” 

“With  present-day  swift  and  cheap 
transportation,  this  Oriental  competition 
can  be  brought  directly  to  our  markets,” 
interrupted  the  farmer  with  much  fervor. 
“Therefore,  how  can  we  compete  with 
such  cheap  but  efficient  labor  when  the 
cost  of  water  transportation  is  small 
compared  with  our  railroad  freight 
charges?  It  costs  less  to  send  a bushel 
of  wheat  from  Brazil  to  New  York  than 
from  Denver  to  New  York  and  yet  it  is 
claimed  that  our  farmers  do  not  need 
protection.” 

Democrats  and  Hard  Times. 

“You  are  certainly  a calamity  howler,” 
snapped  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi, 
concealing  his  indignation  with  much 
difficulty. 

“Perhaps  I do  overestimate  the  evil 
effects  of  free  trade  or  tariffs  for  rev- 
enue, but  I prefer  to  yell  aloud  as  a 


calamity  howler  than  permit  hard  times, 
suffering  and  unemployment  to  be 
brought  upon  us  by  Democrats,”  sharply 
replied  the  farmer.  “Has  there  ever 
been  any  Democratic  administration  dur- 
ing which  we  did  not  have  hard  times? 
The  last  serious  industrial  depression, 
when  the  American  workingman  was 
without  work  and  wages  for  a prolonged 
period,  was  from  1893-6,  which  period 
coincided  with  that  of  the  last  Demo- 
cratic Administration.  From  1896  to 
1912  under  protective  tariffs,  this  country 
has  enjoyed  unexampled  prosperity,  but 
commencing  in  1913  through  1914  under 
Democratic  tariffs,  business  is  becoming 
more  depressed  and  the  numbers  of  the 
unemployed  are  constantly  growing. 
The  war  in  Europe  may  temporarily  pre- 
vent foreign  goods  from  entering  our 
country  but  this  condition  of  affairs  will 
not  be  permanent.” 

“If  hard  times  are  peculiar  only  to 
Democratic  administrations,  how  do  you 
account  for  the  panic  of  1907,  during 
President  Roosevelt’s  administration?” 
rejoined  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi 
with  a confident  air. 

“The  so-called  panic  of  1907  was  a 
financial  and  not  an  industrial  depres- 
sion,” answered  the  farmer  warmly. 
“President  Roosevelt’s  activity  against 
trusts  and  corruption  created  an  uncer- 
tainty in  investments,  with  the  result 
that  people  hoarded  their  savings  and 
would  not  put  their  money  out  at  inter- 
est. This  stringency  in  the  financial  sit- 
uation caused  banks  to  call  in  their 
loans,  embarrassing  certain  big  finan- 
ciers, who  were  unable  to  pay  their 
debts  at  once.  Financial  panics  affect 
bankers  and  speculators,  who  are  sud- 
denly called  upon  to  convert  their  assets 
into  cash  to  pay  their  loans.  In- 
dustrial panics  affect  general  business, 
closing  mills  and  factories,  depriving 
working  people  of  their  livelihood.  A 
disordered  currency  system  was  also  a 
partial  cause  of  the  panic  of  1907  but  the 
new  currency  law,  whipped  into  shape 
by  Republican  Senator  Weeks  of  Massa- 
chusetts, will  probably  prevent  serious 
future  financial  disturbances.  However 
the  new  Currency  Law  cannot  make 
prosperity.  Banks  do  not  make  prosper- 
ity, they  live  on  prosperitj^.  The  protec- 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


tive  tariff  makes  business  and  business 
makes  prosperity,  for  business  under 
protection  deposits  money  in  American 
banks  instead  of  in  foreign  banks.  Give 
a man  a chance  to  do  business  and  bank- 
ing will  be  good,  for  banks  must  first 
have  depositors  before  they  can  loan 
money.  The  impractical  and  unwise  eco- 
nomic policies  of  the  Democratic  Party 
are  the  causes  of  our  present  industrial 
depression.  This  country  has  suffered 
six  periods  of  extreme  prostration  of 
business,  in  1819,  1837,  1857,  1873,,  1893 
and  in  1913,  and  it  is  a striking  fact  that 
each  one  followed  after  great  reductions 
in  tariff  rates.” 

Hard  Times  Followed  the  “New 
Freedom”. 

“Is  it  not  a fact  that  many  of  the  un- 
employed to  whom  you  continually  refer 
as  being  out  of  work  today  are  loafers 
and  tramps?”  inquired  the  young  college 
student. 

“You  are  wrong,  sir,”  exclaimed  the 
traveling  man  turning  towards  the  young 
college  student.  “I  thought  as  you  do 
until  I read  the  reports  of  the  charity 
organizations  in  cities  like  New  York, 
Chicago  and  San  Francisco.  Last  year, 
the  street  cleaning  departments  of  the 
various  large  cities  were  besieged  for  any 
kind  of  work  from  men,  who  fed  at  pub- 
lic soup  houses  and  kept  warm  in  public 
buildings  and  over  gratings.  The  Jew- 
ish Agricultural  and  Industrial  Aid  So- 
ciety of  New  York  said  during  the  win- 
ter: ‘There  are  at  least  ten  city  men 
waiting  and  ready  to  go  on  the  farms  as 
hired  laborers  to  every  job  ready  for 
them  on  the  farms.  The  real  difficulty 
is  not  in  finding  city  men  willing  to  be- 
come farmers  but  in  finding  farms  and 
farmers  for  the  employment  of  city  folk. 
These  men  are  intelligent,  sober,  alert, 
of  good  physique  and  they  want  work.’ 

“Your  statement  that  because  a man 
is  unemployed  he  must  be  a loafer  or  a 
tramp  is  similar  to  President  Wilson’s 
reply  to  a delegation  of  middle  western 
manufacturers,  representing  33,164  fac- 
tories, 1,084,000  employes  and  an  annual 
pay  roll  of  $792,365,000,  who  journeyed 
to  Washington  on  May  28,  1914,  with  a 
desire  to  co-operate  with  Congress  for 
the  relief  of  the  hundreds  of  thousands 


of  unemployed.  President  Wilson  told 
them  that  the  present  depression  of  busi- 
ness was  merely  psychological.  Unfor- 
tunately the  President  has  endeavored 
to  make  many  dramatic  political  plays 
in  order  to  impress  the  people  of  the 
country  that  his  policies  are  working 
satisfactorily.  For  instance,  when  the 
future  of  the  tariff  bill  was  darkest,  he 
declared  that  he  had  learned  that  a 
wealthy  and  insidious  lobby  was  at  work 
against  it,  but  the  lobby  committee  with 
Senator  Overman  at  its  head  has  never 
reported,  after  many  months  of  investi- 
gation. When  the  currency  bill  was 
under  fire,  Secretary  McAdoo  asserted 
that  the  New  York  banks  were  conspir- 
ing to  depreciate  the  value  of  two  per 
cent.  U.  S.  bonds,  whereas  those  very 
banks  were  large  holders  of  such  bonds 
and  would  be  seriously  injured  by  any 
impairment  in  their  value.  When  the 
trust  bills  were  before  Congress,  the 
President  announced  that  he  had  un- 
earthed a vicious  conspiracy  by  stating 
for  publication  that  a small  publishing 
house  in  New  York  had  sent  out  two 
hundred  letters,  asking  the  subscribers 
to  its  magazine  to  write  to  their  Con- 
gressman protesting  against  certain  fea- 
tures of  the  trust  bills.  Nevertheless 
neither  the  President  nor  any  of  the 
Democrats  has  ever  mentioned  their 
political  conspiracy  in  opening  up  a 
press  bureau  for  the  purpose  of  adver- 
tising through  newspapers  that  bad 
times  were  passing  away  with  the 
dawning  of  a new  era  of  prosperity 
which  has  not  as  yet  really  dawned.” 

“These  charges  of  widespread  conspir- 
acy emanating  from  the  Democrats,” 
broke  in  the  labor  leader,  “are  as  ridicu- 
lous as  the  statements  of  Secretary 
Redfield,  who  told  the  Boston  Cham- 
ber of  Commerce  that  it  was  nonsense 
for  American  business  men  to  claim  they 
could  not  compete  with  Europe  because 
wages  were  less  there,  for  all  that  would 
be  necessary  for  them  to  do  would  be 
to  sell  for  lower  prices  and  pay  more 
wages.  If  the  Secretary  will  tell  us  how 
to  pay  more  wages  and  sell  for  lower 
prices  without  a protective  tariff,  every 
labor  man  and  manufacturer  would 
welcome  his  advice.  I am  for  as  high 
wages  as  labor  can  obtain  but  I am 


THE  NEW  FEED  'EM 


x5 


sensible  enough  to  know  that  we  cannot 
receive  higher  wages  unless  business  is 
profitable  to  the  manufacturer.” 

Lower  Tariff  but  Higher  Prices. 

“Well,  gentlemen,”  asserted  the  gen- 
tleman from  Mississippi,  “if  unemploy- 
ment does  temporarily  prevail,  because 
of  economic  readjustments  due  to  a 
change  in  the  tariff,  this  slight  industrial 
depression  is  more  than  compensated  for 
by  the  reduction  in  the  cost  of  living.” 

“Neither  the  Underwood  tariff  law,  nor 
any  other  low  tariff  law  has  ever  brought 
spectacular  relief  to  those  upon  whom 
the  burden  of  the  high  cost  of  living 
falls  with  the  most  crushing  force,”  re- 
plied the  farmer.  “The  tariff  is  but  a 
small  factor  in  the  cost  of  living.  The 
Payne-Aldrich  law  decreased  many  of 
the  duties  upon  almost  every  article  that 
goes  on  the  table  of  the  American  work- 
man but  no  lower  prices  resulted,  be- 
cause of  these  tariff  cuts.  The  special 
investigation  of  the  causes  of  the  high 
cost  of  living  by  Congress  demonstrated 
that  the  decline  in  the  number  of  farm- 
ers and  farm  products  with  the  increase 
of  consumers  in  cities  was  a large  ele- 
ment in  the  increase  of  prices.  The  cost 
of  living  has  increased  throughout  the 
world  and  not  alone  in  the  United  States. 
Prices  were  going  higher  every  day  and 
not  becoming  lower,  even  long  before 
the  European  wars  commenced.  The 
high  cost  of  living  is  not  due  to  the  tar- 
iff, but  as  the  Secretary  of  Agriculture 
told  the  farmers  at  Manchester,  N.  H., 
to  the  decreasing  purchasing  power  of 
gold,  of  which  there  has  been  a large 
production,  to  the  wasteful  extravagance 
of  our  people  and  our  government,  to 
high  wages,  to  costs  of  distribution  and 
transportation,  and  to  the  increase  in 
city  and  decrease  in  the  farming  popu- 
lation. It  is  even  claimed  that  the  cost 
of  delivering  a small  parcel  in  a large 
city  is  8 1/4  cents,  and  the  consumer 
must  add  such  expenses  as  this  to  the 
cost  of  living.  Of  course  very  recent 
increased  prices  are  due  to  the  wars 
abroad,  where  much  destruction  of  eco- 
nomic forces  is  taking  place.” 

“Is  not  the  tariff  duty  a tax  to  be  paid 
by  the  foreign  merchant  and  importer?” 
interrupted  the  gentleman  from  Missis- 


sippi impatiently.  “Does  not  the  for- 
eign merchant  or  importer  then  add  this 
tax  to  the  price  of  his  goods,  thereby 
raising  the  final  price  to  the  American 
consumer  by  the  amount  of  this  tax  or 
duty?” 

“You  presuppose  that  we  must  buy 
our  goods  from  foreign  merchants,”  an- 
swered the  farmer.  “Protectionists  al- 
ways maintain  that  we  should  buy  from 
our  own  merchants,  so  we  therefore 
avoid  the  increase  in  price,  which  for- 
eign merchants  may  ask  because  of  the 
tariff  duty.” 

“As  a matter  of  fact,  do  not  the 
American  merchant  and  manufacturer 
then  raise  their  prices,  so  as  to  receive 
more  profit  for  themselves?”  retorted  the 
gentleman  from  Mississippi.  “If  we  can 
purchase  an  article  for  $1.00  and  the  tar- 
iff duty  is  20  cents,  the  foreigner  will 
charge  $1.20  when  the  duty  is  imposed. 
What  prevents  the  American  manufac- 
turer from  also  charging  $1.20,  and  what 
difference  does  it  make  to  the  consumer 
whether  he  pays  $1.20  to  the  foreigner 
or  the  American?  The  consumer  is 
more  concerned  with  the  increase  in  the 
price  due  to  the  tariff  duty  than  he  is 
with  those  who  make  profit  from  the 
sale  of  the  goods.” 

Protection  with  Low  Prices. 

“The  American  consumer  is  very  vi- 
tally concerned  with  whomsoever  makes 
the  profit,”  exclaimed  the  farmer,  “inas- 
much as  he  should  be  the  producer  of  the 
goods  he  consumes.  If  the  American 
producer-consumer  bought  all  his  goods 
from  foreigners,  he  certainly  would  pay 
the  foreign  price  plus  the  tariff  duty  but 
a protective  tariff  requires  him  to  buy 
his  goods  from  his  American  neighbor 
and  his  neighbor  to  purchase  from  him. 
When  we  buy  of  each  other,  the  tariff 
duty  is  not  added  to  the  price  of  the 
goods  we  make,  because  experience  un- 
der protection  has  conclusively  demon- 
strated that  competition  among  home 
merchants  and  manufacturers  reduces 
the  prices  of  home  products.  Produc- 
tion at  a low  cost  from  competition,  and 
with  improved  methods,  is  the  dominant 
feature  of  business  under  protection. 
The  net  result  of  this  domestic  competi- 
tion is  that  many  articles  that  fifty  years 


i6 


THE  NEW  FEED  'EM 


ago  were  regarded  as  extravagant  lux- 
uries, such  as  woolens,  silks,  broad- 
cloths, watches,  gloves,  cotton  prints, 
groceries,  etc.,  can  now  be  purchased  at 
low  prices  by  everyone.  In  1850,  there 
were  no  cheap,  good  illuminants  for  the 
house  of  the  plain  man  but  today  we 
have  coal  oil  at  eleven  cents  a gallon 
instead  of  one  dollar,  as  well  as  gaso- 
line, vaseline,  paraffin  and  a thousand 
other  oils.  Steel  rails  sold  once  at  $130 
a ton  but  today  sell  at  $27  a ton,  while 
the  price  of  tin  plates  is  continually  go- 
ing lower.  Protection  broke  the  Euro- 
pean monopoly  over  the  United  States 
and  stimulated  production  here,  increas- 
ing our  supplies  and  improving  our  in- 
dustrial and  farming  processes,  thus 
gradually  reducing  prices  throughout 
the  country.  The  strenuous  home  com- 
petition prevailing  during  the  operation 
of  protective  tariffs  has  in  turn  forced 
the  foreigner  to  reduce  his  prices  as  our 
prices  decline  in  value,  until  finally  he 
must  either  pay  the  entire  duty  himself 
or  remove  his  factory  to  this  country,  if 
he  desires  to  retain  the  American  trade 
for  his  mills.” 

“Are  there  not  some  instances  where 
the  tariff  duty  tends  to  increase  prices, 
particularly  when  competition  is  not  so 
very  brisk?”  remarked  the  traveling 
salesman. 

“Yes,  but  very  few  indeed,”  replied  the 
farmer,  “and  upon  those  articles  the 
smallness  of  the  import  duty  compared 
with  the  final  cost  of  these  articles  to 
the  ultimate  consumer,  constitutes  a low 
fraction  of  this  final  cost.  The  importer, 
jobber,  manufacturer  and  retailer  all  add 
their  profits  to  the  import  price,  thus 
making  the  final  selling  price  much  more 
than  the  import  price.  Now  the  tariff 
duty  is  but  a fraction  of  the  import  price, 
the  average  duty  rate  of  the  Payne- 
Aldrich  law  was  40  per  cent.,  while 
even  in  our  highest  tariff  laws  few  items 
pay  more  than  50  per  cent.  Conse- 
quently the  actual  tariff  duty  compared 
to  the  final  cost  of  the  commodity  to  the 
consumer  is  so  small  an  item,  that  a 
reduction  in  the  tariff  duty  of  even  50 
per  cent,  would  have  but  little  effect 
upon  the  final  selling  price.  In  fact 
whenever  the  tariff  is  reduced,  the  reduc- 
tion is  spread  out  over  so  vast  a surface 


in  the  purchases  of  a hundred  million 
people,  that  any  reduction  in  the  final 
selling  price  would  be  absorbed  by  the 
middlemen.” 

“Would  you  be  willing  to  cite  a few 
examples  to  prove  that  the  tariff  duty  is 
small  when  compared  to  the  final  sell- 
ing price,  which  the  ultimate  consumer 
must  pay  for  his  goods?”  requested  the 
traveling  salesman. 

Wool  and  Woolens. 

“If  it  will  not  be  too  tiresome,  I will 
be  glad  to  comply  with  your  request,” 
said  the  farmer.  “For  instance,  let  us 
take  Schedule  K,  the  wool  and  woolen 
schedule,  which  has  been  regarded  as 
containing  many  excessive  and  oppres- 
sive tariff  rates.  If  the  ultimate  con- 
sumer were  to  receive  the  entire  benefit 
of  the  Underwood  law,  which  places 
wool  on  the  free  list  and  reduces  the 
duty  on  cloth  to  35  per  cent.,  he  will  not 
get  much.  It  takes  three  and  one-half 
yards  of  cloth  to  make  a suit  of  clothes 
and  the  difference  under  the  new  law  in 
reduced  cost  of  cloth  for  a summer  suit 
would  be  perhaps  60  cents,  if  foreign 
goods,  and  40  cents,  if  American  goods, 
while  for  a winter  suit,  it  would  be 
about  95  cents  for  a suit  length  of  for- 
eign goods  and  60  cents  for  a suit  of 
domestic  woolens.  What  tailor  could  be 
expected  to  lower  the  price  of  his  suits 
by  such  small  figures  as  these,  especially 
when  the  greater  majority  of  tailors  use 
domestic  cloth?  If  the  entire  tariff  on 
woolen  goods  were  removed,  the  reduc- 
tion on  the  very  popular  medium  12/14 
ounce  cloth  would  be  15  cents  a yard  for 
three  yards  or  52  1/2  cents  on  a suit  of 
clothes.  No  American  consumer  could 
buy  a $20  suit  of  clothes  for  $19.47  1/2, 
for  the  retail  merchant  or  jobber  would 
appropriate  the  reduction  for  himself. 

Cotton  Goods. 

“The  cotton  manufacturer  of  the  South 
and  the  East  would  count  himself  as  for- 
tunate to  average  a profit  of  one  cent 
per  yard  upon  the  cloth  he  manufactures. 
Today  his  profit  is  but  a small  fraction 
of  one  cent  per  yard,  if  he  should  make 
any  profit  at  all.  If  the  entire  profit  our 
manufacturer  ever  should  make  were  to 
be  given  to  the  ultimate  consumer,  he 
would  save  about  three  cents  on  a shirt 


THE  NEW  FEED  'EM 


17 


selling  for  one  dollar  and  a half  while 
his  wife  would  save  about  two  and  one- 
half  cents  upon  a shirtwaist  selling  for 
three  dollars.  Recently  two  pieces  of 
cloth  were  traced  from  a cotton  mill  in 
Fall  River,  Mass.,  to  a very  prominent 
department  store  in  New  York  City, 
where  they  had  been  made  up  into 
ladies’  shirtwaists.  The  first  piece  of 
cloth  that  sold  at  the  mill  for  17  cents 
was  made  up  into  a plain  shirtwaist  that 
retailed  across  the  counters  at  $2.50, 
while  the  second  piece  of  goods,  better 
in  quality  that  sold  at  the  mill  for  22 
cents  was  made  up  into  a shirtwaist 
frilled  with  machine  embroidery  that 
sold  at  $8.  In  each  one  of  these  shirt- 
waists were  but  two  and  one-half  yards 
of  cloth  and  the  expense  of  making  the 
cloth  up  into  shirtwaists  was  but  small 
compared  with  the  price  paid  by  the  ulti- 
mate consumer  at  the  department  store. 
If  the  entire  duty  upon  cotton  cloth  were 
to  be  removed,  reducing  the  price  of  the 
cloth  two  or  three  cents  a yard,  it  is 
very  doubtful  whether  such  a small  sav- 
ing of  eight  or  ten  cents  in  shirtwaists 
selling  for  $2.50  and  $8.00  would  be  de- 
ducted from  the  final  selling  price. 

Wheat  and  Fleur. 

“It  is  said  that  the  free  listing  of  wheat 
will  cheapen  bread.  Let  us  suppose  that 
the  consumer  would  receive  every  cent 
of  the  tariff  reduction.  Four  and  one- 
half  bushels  of  wheat  will  mill  into  a 
barrel  of  flour.  The  duty  upon  four  and 
one-half  bushels  of  wheat  in  the  Payne- 
Aldrich  law  would  have  been  about  one 
dollar  and  ten  cents.  The  barrel  of 
flour  makes  370  loaves  of  bread.  If  you 
divide  the  duty  upon  each  barrel  of  flour 
by  the  number  of  loaves  of  bread  the 
barrel  of  flour  will  make,  you  will  find 
that  the  duty  on  each  loaf  is  one  hun- 
dred and  ten  three  hundred  and  seven- 
tieths, or  less  than  one-third  of  a cent 
on  an  eight  cent  loaf  of  bread.  If  flour 
were  admitted  free,  the  reduction  would 
be  ninety-five  three  hundred  and  seven- 
tieths or  approximately  one-quarter  of 
a cent  on  a loaf  of  bread.  With  the  en- 
tire reduction  of  25  cents  a bushel  on 
wheat  and  25  per  cent,  ad  valorem  on 
flour,  the  rates  of  the  Payne-Aldrich 
law,  you  can  observe  just  how  small  a 


saving  the  ultimate  consumer  would 
have.  In  fact,  like  free  listing  hides 
and  reducing  the  duty  on  shoes,  as  was 
done  in  the  Payne-Aldrich  law,  little 
benefit  will  ever  be  derived  by  you  and 
me,  for  the  retailer  and  jobber  monopo- 
lize any  such  small  reductions  for  them- 
selves.” 

“The  illustrations  that  you  have  cited,” 
asserted  the  labor  leader,  “demonstrate 
that  a reduced  cost  of  living  must  come 
through  other  means  than  tariff  reduc- 
tion. As  much  as  we  might  like  to  be- 
lieve in  the  Democratic  claim  of  high 
wages  and  low  prices  under  revenue  tar- 
iffs, we  realize  that  this  would  mean  that 
prices  must  be  lowered  by  cheapening 
the  product  of  labor,  or  eventually  low- 
ering wages.  But  to  live  in  a country  of 
cheap  living  means  as  a rule  that  there 
is  less  opportunity  to  save  compared 
with  countries  where  wages  and  the 
standard  of  living  are  higher  and  there 
is  progress  and  a cheerful  outlook  for 
working  people.  Free  trade  and  revenue 
tariff  countries  are  those  countries  where 
the  standard  of  living  is  lowest  and  the 
work  that  is  done  is  compensated  by 
small  wages.  The  American  workman 
can  live  for  as  little  in  the  United  States 
as  any  foreign  workman  can  live  for 
in  his  own  country.  If  the  American 
spends  more  for  his  living  than  the  Eng- 
lish workman,  that  does  not  prove  that 
living  costs  more  here.  We  Americans 
spend  more  for  our  living  simply  be- 
cause we  have  it  to  spend  and  not  be- 
cause we  must  spend  it.” 

Protection  Not  the  Mother  of  Trusts. 

“Has  not  protection  been  the  mother 
of  trusts?”  the  young  college  student 
inquired  of  the  farmer. 

“There  is  not  a single  so-called  trust 
in  the  United  States  that  would  be  so 
seriously  affected  by  the  overthrow  of 
protection  as  its  independent  competit- 
ors would,”  replied  the  farmer.  “Trusts 
have  shared  in  the  benefits  of  protection, 
but  are  not  the  results  of  protection. 
Trusts  are  the  natural  and  logical  evo- 
lution' of  contemporaneous  industrial 
conditions,  and  just  as  do  labor  unions 
and  the  high  cost  of  living,  they  exist 
throughout  the  world.  The  trusts  of 
Germany,  France  and  free  trade  Eng- 


1 8 


THE  NEW  FEED  'EM 


land  are  the  strongest  in  the  world,  but 
in  this  country  the  successful  prosecu- 
tion of  the  Sherman  Anti-Trust  Law 
maintains  competition  and  dissolves 
these  large  trusts.  Neither  protection 
nor  competition  under  protective  tariffs 
are  conducive  to  the  formation  of 
trusts.” 

“Do  you  believe  that  it  is  wise  to  place 
trust-made  products  upon  the  free  list?” 
inquired  the  labor  leader. 

“Nearly  all  the  large  American  manu- 
facturing concerns  have  erected  plants 
in  foreign  countries  to  supply  foreign 
markets,”  continued  the  farmer.  “By 
placing  their  products  on  the  free  list  it 
would  be  profitable  for  these  concerns 
to  enlarge  their  foreign  mills  and  ship 
into  the  United  States  rather  than  ex- 
pand in  America.  American  factories  in 
England,  France,  Germany  and  Japan, 
paying  much  lower  wages  than  our  do- 
mestic mills,  could  compete  with  the 
home  plants  with  a considerable  margin 
of  profit.  Of  course  American  stock- 
holders would  receive  the  profits,  but  the 
wages  and  work  would  go  to  foreign 
workmen.  For  instance  take  the  free 
listing  of  meats  and  cattle.  The  Ameri- 
can beef  packers  have  absolute  control 
of  many  packing  houses  in  Argentine, 
Uruguay  and  Paraguay,  so  that  our  tar- 
iff reductions  have  doubtless  resulted  in 
increased  profits  to  beef  packers.  Beef 
is  soaring  higher  every  day  but  the  cattle 
raising  farmer  has  been  hard  hit  by  the 
free  listing  of  his  cattle.  When  the  tar- 
iff upon  trust-made  products  is  reduced, 
not  the  strong  and  wealthy  but  the  small 
manufacturer  is  the  first  to  go  to  the 
wall.  The  little  man  is  the  first  to  suc- 
cumb to  foreign  competition.” 

“Is  it  not  true  that  highly  protected 
industries  sell  their  goods  for  less  in 
foreign  countries  than  they  do  in  the 
United  States?”  broke  in  the  young  col- 
lege student. 

“Sometimes  they  do,  but  not  often, 
and  then  only  to  establish  a selling 
market  for  their  goods.  When  our  man- 
ufacturers have  accumulated  a surplus 
they  dispose  of  it  at  times  in  foreign 
markets  at  a low  price  in  order  to  un- 
dersell their  foreign  competitors.  To 
keep  this  surplus  product  at  home 
and  sell  it  at  cut  prices  would  be  that 
each  one  would  compete  against  himself. 


Such  a policy  would  soon  drive  them  out 
of  business.  Instead,  they  retain  their 
home  market,  where  prices  are  lowered 
by  competition  with  other  domestic 
manufacturers,  and  then  endeavor  to 
conquer  foreign  markets,  where  they 
must  sell  for  low  prices  in  order  to  over- 
come the  prejudice  against  American 
goods  and  fear  of  an  American  com- 
mercial invasion,  as  well  as  meet  boun- 
ties paid  to  their  foreign  competitors  by 
foreign  countries,  in  the  form  of  reduced 
freight  rates.” 

“Do  you  think  that  it  is  a ‘square  deal’ 
to  sell  American  goods  to  foreigners  at 
lower  prices  than  to  our  own  people, 
even  for  the  reasons  you  mentioned?” 
retorted  the  young  college  student. 

“No,  if  it  were  the  usual  practice,”  an- 
swered the  farmer,  “but  since  a very 
small  portion  of  our  manufactured  goods 
is  sold  for  less  abroad  than  here,  I 
would  reply  that  in  such  cases  it  is  justi- 
fiable in  order  to  build  up  our  foreign 
markets.  Those  Democrats,  who  urge 
our  merchants  to  develop  foreign  trade, 
cannot  criticise  any  low  prices  to  for- 
eigners. However,  under  protection,  the 
trade  practice  of  cutting  prices  abroad  is 
not  followed  as  much  as  people  claim. 
Low  prices  upon  American  goods  in 
foreign  countries  can  be  attributed  usu- 
ally to  the  fact  that  the  goods  are  second 
hand  or  out  of  date  or  have  been  made 
by  American  plants  located  in  foreign 
countries.” 

Protection  Increases  Foreign  Trade. 

“Do  not  high  duties  interfere  with  the 
successful  development  of  our  foreign 
trade?”  commented  the  traveling  sales- 
man. “How  can  we  build  up  our  com- 
merce when  we  are  hampered  by  tariff 
restrictions  on  all  sides.” 

“Under  protective  duties,  which  may 
be  high  or  low,  our  foreign  trade  has  in- 
creased marvellously,  but  under  revenue 
tariffs  or  free  trade  our  foreign  trade  has 
declined,”  replied  the  farmer.  “Under 
protection  our  exports  have  exceeded 
our  imports  and  are  larger  than  exports 
under  revenue  tariffs,  but  when  the  Dem- 
ocrats are  in  power  our  exports  decline 
way  below  our  imports  and  the  balance 
of  trade  is  against  us.” 

“What  do  you  mean  by  the  balance  of 
trade?”  broke  in  Bill,  feeling  that  he  had 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


maintained  a discreet  silence  long 
enough. 

“The  balance  of  trade  between  two 
countries  is  the  relation  between  their 
exports  and  imports,”  continued  the 
farmer.  “A  favorable  balance  of  trade 
exists  where  our  exports,  or  what  we  sell 
to  foreign  nations,  are  larger  than  our 
imports,  or  what  we  buy  from  foreign  na- 
tions. It  is  called  favorable  because  we 
can  pay  for  our  imports  from  the  money 
derived  in  the  sales  of  our  exports  and 
have  something  left  over  for  ourselves. 
In  1908  under  protection  our  exports 
exceeded  our  imports  by  666  millions  of 
dollars;  in  1912,  551  millions  and  in  fact 
our  exports  have  continually  been  larger 
than  our  imports  during  the  last  sixteen 
years  of  Republican  administrations. 
However  under  the  Underwood  law, 
our  total  foreign  trade  is  less  than 
in  1913,  the  last  year  of  the  Payne- 
Aldrich  law,  and  our  imports  have  in- 
creased 81  millions  over  those  of  I9J3 
and  exports  decreased  99  millions  for 
only  nine  months’  operation  of  the  law. 
If  conditions  were  normal  throughout 
the  world,  with  no  European  wars,  our 
imports  for  the  full  year  under  the  Un- 
derwood, law  would  exceed  our  exports, 
the  first  time  for  many  years.” 

“What  effect  will  the  large  crops  of 
the  West  have  upon  our  foreign  trade?” 
inquired  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi. 

“With  big  crops,”  replied  the  farmer, 
“there  should  be  a balance  of  trade  in 
our  favor,  but  only  for  a limited  time. 
The  operation  of  the  Underwood  Tariff 
Law  plainly  indicates  that  the  balance  of 
trade  is  going  against  us,  which  accounts 
for  the  large  exportation  of  gold  from 
the  United  States.  Although  this  expor- 
tation of  gold  may  be  partially  due  to 
very  low  money  rates  in  New  York,  sales 
of  American  securities  by  Europeans, 
relative  firmness  of  the  European  dis- 
count market,  money  sent  by  aliens 
and  expenditures  made  by  American 
travelers  in  Europe,  and  European 
wars,  — nevertheless  the  underlying 
basis  is  that  Europe  demands  gold  for 
the  goods  she  has  sent  into  this  coun- 
try, since  we  have  not  sold  enough  to 
foreign  nations  to  counterbalance  their 
claims  against  us  with  debts,  which  they 
owe  us.” 


Free  Trade  Diminishes  Foreign  Trade. 

“Cannot  examples  be  cited  of  a serious- 
decline  of  a nation’s  export  trade  be- 
cause of  that  nation’s  adopting  protec- 
tion?” rejoined  the  gentleman  from 
Mississippi. 

“No,”  said  the  farmer.  “In  fact,  pro- 
hibitory tariffs  have  usually  induced 
large  exports.  When  American  exports 
were  hardly  admitted  into  England  upon 
any  terms,  English  goods  were  pouring 
into  this  country.  American  exports 
were  the  highest  during  the  last  half 
century,  when  the  tariff  walls  of  the 
United  States  were  highest.  Today, 
there  are  enormous  importations  of  Bra- 
zilian coffee,  Argentine  hides,  Cuban 
sugar  and  tobacco  to  the  United  States, 
and  all  of  these  countries  lay  heavy  bur- 
dens on  the  importation  of  American 
products,  and  purchase  an  insignificant 
amount  of  our  goods.  There  is  no 
friendship  in  trade  and  if  our  exports  do 
not  pay  for  our  imports,  then  our  gold 
must  supply  the  deficiency.  At  one 
time  Great  Britain  excluded  our  wheat, 
but  she  purchases  it  today  only  because 
she  must  have  it.  Foreign  trade  is  dic- 
tated by  selfish  motives  and  not  from  a 
consideration  of  public  welfare.  We  sell 
what  we  can  and  receive  a foreign  credit 
in  return  for  our  goods,  which  we  can 
cash.  The  foreigner  only  buys  what  he 
wants  and  if  our  sales  do  not  equal  in 
value  the  purchases  we  make,  then  our 
money  pays  the  difference  and  the  bal- 
ance of  trade  is  against  us.” 

“If  revenue  tariffs  have  caused  our 
foreign  trade  to  diminish  in  volume, 
how  do  you  account  for  the  large  for- 
eign trade  of  free  trade  England?”  ques- 
tioned the  young  college  student. 

“The  foreign  trade  of  England  is  on 
the  decline,”  responded  the  farmer. 
“The  high  protective  tariff  country  of 
Germany  had,  until  the  European 
wars,  the  largest  foreign  trade  per 
capita.  England’s  supremacy  in  trade 
depends  upon  her  commerce  with  her 
own  colonies.  To  maintain  her  posi- 
tion, England  has  established  colonies 
like  Canada,  India,  Australia,  etc.,  upon 
every  continent  and  protects  her  ship- 
ping, the  medium  of  exchange  between 
these  colonies,  by  huge  subsidies.  Now 
all  these  colonies  have  high  protective 


20 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


duties,  but  allow  preferential  rates  to 
their  mother  country.  Thus  England 
has  declared  for  free  trade  but  unblush- 
ingly  protects  her  merchant  marine  and 
her  colonial  markets.  Requiring  food- 
stuffs for  the  British  Isles,  she  advocates 
free  trade  for  the  world  but  has  never 
taken  any  action  to  remove  the  protec- 
tion from  her  strongest  industry,  ship- 
ping, nor  has  she  ever  attempted  to 
place  her  colonial  markets  upon  a free 
trade  basis.  In  fact,  her  colonies  are 
raising  their  tariff  duties.  Canada  after 
receiving  more  favorable  concessions  by 
the  Underwood  law,  than  from  the  Reci- 
procity act,  has  increased  her  tariff  with 
the  result  that  many  Americans  are  fol- 
lowing the  advice  of  Eugene  N.  Foss, 
ex-Democratic  Governor  of  Massachu- 
setts, in  transferring  their  plants  to  Can- 
ada, in  order  to  compete  with  England 
on  Canadian  soil.  The  U.  S.  Steel  Cor- 
poration is  planning  to  erect  a $10,000,- 
000  steel  plant  across  the  border.  Re- 
cently our  consul  at  Bombay,  India, 
stated  that  our  steel  plants  might  have 
found  a large  market  in  India,  if  it  were 
not  for  the  fact  that  the  Indian  Govern- 
ment regulations  restricted  government 
purchases  of  iron  and  steel  material  to 
English  mills.  British  steel  mills  in 
India,  paying  seven  cents  a day  to 
women  and  eight  cents  a day  to  native 
men,  are  now  sending  cargoes  of  rails 
into  San  Francisco.  Mr.  C.  P.  Perin, 
the  American  representative  of  these 
mills,  remarked  lately  at  a public  dinner, 
that  he  was  sorry  to  be  the  instrument 
through  which  this  was  done,  but  since 
we  had  taken  down  the  barriers  to  help 
people  who  get  eight  cents  a day  to  sell 
their  product  in  this  country,  he  in- 
tended to  have  his  rails  sold  in  the 
American  market.” 

Protection  not  an  Artificial  Stimulant. 

“It  seems  to  me  that  the  protective 
tariff  places  this  country  upon  an  arti- 
ficial basis,”  remarked  the  gentleman 
from  Mississippi.  “It  acts  like  a stimu- 
lant and  all  stimulants  are  injurious.  It 
shuts  us  off  from  the  world  and  encour- 
ages the  investment  of  capital.  Within 
a few  years  there  is  over-investment  with 
an  inflated  industrial  system,  which 
sooner  or  later  must  collapse,  resulting 


in  panics.  Why  not  allow  the  business 
of  the  country  to  have  a slow  gradual 
growth  and  develop  what  we  are  best 
adapted  for,  rather  than  build  up  an  arti- 
ficial business,  which  cannot  meet  for- 
eign competition  and  is  so  enervated 
that  it  periodically  breaks  down.  If  a 
protective  tariff  is  a wise  policy  for  the 
encouragement  of  beet  sugar  growing 
in  Colorado,  why  is  it  not  the  best  pol- 
icy to  pursue  for  the  cultivation  of 
cocoanuts  in  Maine?  The  American 
consumer  is  no  better  off  in  one  case 
than  in  the  other,  for  he  must  pay  the 
bill  in  both  cases.” 

“Any  policy  that  encourages  the  in- 
vestment of  capital  in  factories  and  in 
farms  creating  employment  for  labor  at 
good  wages  is  certainly  not  a stimulant 
but  a sound  economic  policy,”  responded 
the  farmer  rather  warmly.  “The  ideal 
industrial  condition  of  a nation  is  every- 
one at  work.  Protection  is  not  intoxi- 
cation but  bread  and  butter.  The  prin- 
ciple which  underlies  protection  is  the 
retention  of  the  markets  of  America  to 
the  American  people.  It  means  that  the 
work  of  this  nation  shall  be  done  by  the 
people  of  this  nation.  Since  we  have  no 
lack  of  raw  materials,  any  policy  which 
enables  our  people  to  do  our  own  work 
in  fabricating  these  raw  materials  is  the 
system  which  will  keep  our  mills  busy 
and  our  workmen  employed.  Industrial 
inflation,  as  you  call  over-investment, 
results  from  watered  stocks  and  not 
from  giving  work  and  wages  to  Ameri- 
can citizens.” 

“But  certainly,  you  would  not  encour- 
age any  industry  that  could  not  be  prof- 
itably conducted,  such  as  growing  co- 
coanuts in  Maine?”  added  the  gentleman 
from  Mississippi  with  a self  reliant 
smile. 

“Protectionists  are  at  least  sane  and 
reasonable,”  responded  the  farmer  test- 
ily. “You  have  selected  an  extreme  case, 
but  if  it  were  possible  to  cultivate  cocoa- 
nuts  in  Maine  so  as  to  give  employment 
to  American  labor,  then  protectionists 
would  favor  a tariff  on  cocoanuts,  for 
competition  within  a short  time  among 
cocoanut  growers  would  soon  reduce 
prices.  The  means  of  protection  may  be 
artificial,  like  houses  and  clothing, 
armies  and  navies,  but  the  necessity  of 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


21 


protection  is  the  most  natural  thing  in 
the  world  from  youth  to  old  age. 
Where  would  we  be  today  if  we  had 
followed  the  advice  of  free  traders  and 
depended  entirely  upon  Europe  for  many 
of  our  supplies?  The  first  thing  a liv- 
ing being  does  is  to  seek  food  and  shel- 
ter, and  defend  itself  against  danger. 
It  pays  to  encourage  your  own 
family  and  keep  work  in  the  nation. 
But  you  must  not  forget  that  protection 
not  only  aims  to  give  work  and  wages 
to  our  people  but  to  establish  diversified 
industries,  so  that  our  resources  will  be 
developed  in  all  lines  and  not  in  a few, 
as  under  free  trade.  For  as  a nation, 
the  maintenance  of  a well-balanced  and 
evenly  distributed  industrial  and  agricul- 
tural system  makes  us  independent  of 
other  nations  in  both  times  of  war  and 
peace.  By  reason  of  this  very  independ- 
ence, we  can  make  what  terms  we  desire 
with  other  nations.  What  a blessing  it 
is,  that  with  all  Europe  at  war,  we 
are  able  to  maintain  ourselves  in  our 
home  market  by  our  own  indus- 
tries and  from  our  own  resources.  But 
if  the  Democratic  policy  were  to  have 
been  followed  during  the  last  decade,  the 
United  States  would  be  dependent  upon 
Europe  and  the  suffering  of  our  people 
today  would  have  been  extreme,  when 
all  Europe  became  isolated  by  war.  Is 
it  not  more  advantageous  for  us  to  sus- 
tain our  prestige  by  such  an  economic 
policy  rather  than  by  dint  of  arms?” 

Protection  and  “the  South”. 

“Why  is  it  any  more  necessary  for  us 
to  have  protection  upon  farm  products 
than  upon  cotton?  The  South  asks  for 
no  protection  upon  its  cotton  for  we  are 
confident  that  we  can  compete  with  the 
world,”  asserted  the  gentleman  from 
Mississippi. 

“The  South  fears  no  competition, 
because  she  has  a monopoly  of  the 
world’s  cotton,”  retorted  the  farmer. 
“When  Sea  Island,  Egyptian,  South 
American  and  Oriental  cotton  become 
strong  competitors,  the  South  will  fight 
as  hard  for  protection  upon  cotton  as  she 
successfully  did  for  peanut  oil,  linseed, 
flaxseed,  hair  of  Texas  angora  goat,  to- 
bacco, rice,  whisky,  oranges,  peanuts, 
fluorspar,  mica,  coarse  cotton  goods,  all 


Southern  products,  which  are  protected 
by  duties  in  the  Underwood  law,  while 
the  duties  upon  the  products  cultivated 
and  made  in  the  North  and  the  East 
were  cut  to  the  quick.  But  recently  a 
number  of  Southern  planters  with  a view 
to  the  protection  of  their  sales  of  cotton 
requested  Congress  to  exclude  Egyptian 
cotton  from  New  England,  because  of  a 
supposed  pink  boll  worm  it  might  con- 
tain, but  even  a Democratic  Congress 
found  it  difficult  to  conceive  how  this 
imaginary  insect  could  crawl  from 
Massachusetts  to  Mississippi,  so  refused 
the  demand  of  these  cotton  planters. 

No  Tariff  Wars  Under  American  Pro- 
tection. 

“Do  not  protective  tariffs  in  one  coun- 
try incite  other  countries  to  levy  pro- 
tective tariffs,  and  thereby  create  tariff 
wars?”  ventured  the  traveling  salesman. 

“Occasionally,”  admitted  the  farmer, 
“but  to  avoid  tariff  disagreements,  pro- 
tectionists compromise  such  differences 
by  means  of  maximum  and  minimum 
rates  and  reciprocity  treaties.  The 
former  method  permits  the  President  to 
increase  duties  to  a certain  level  or  de- 
crease them  to  a certain  level  in  return 
for  similar  action  taken  by  foreign  na- 
tions. Thus  by  proper  adjustment  all 
friction  between  the  countries  is  elim- 
inated. Reciprocity  treaties,  however, 
exchange  what  we  have  a surplus  of  for 
the  surplus  of  foreign  nations,  by  lower- 
ing or  removing  duties  under  special  act 
of  Congress,  such  as  our  reciprocity 
treaties  with  Cuba  and  Hawaii.” 

“Why  then  did  so  many  Republicans 
oppose  the  recent  Canadian  Reciprocity 
bill?”  interrupted  the  gentleman  from 
Mississippi,  certain  that  this  time  the 
farmer  would  be  caught  in  a trap. 

“Because  they  were  convinced  that  it 
would  prove  injurious  to  our  people,” 
answered  the  farmer  good  naturedly. 
“From  1854  to  1866,  a similar  reciprocity 
treaty  existed  between  Canada  and  the 
United  States.  Under  this  law  Canadian 
imports  in  eleven  years  increased  500  per 
cent,  while  our  export  trade  to  Canada 
increased  but  15  per  cent.  Notwith- 
standing this  advantage  that  Canada  had 
gained,  she  increased  her  duties  on  arti- 
cles not  particularly  mentioned  in  the 


22 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


treaty,  thereby  violating  an  implied 
agreement  with  us  that  our  tariff  rela- 
tions should  be  friendly.  Consequently 
the  treaty  was  abrogated.  Protection- 
ists apprehended  that  the  Reciprocity 
Treaty  of  1911  would  terminate  in  the 
same  manner  and  not  reduce  the  cost  of 
living  in  the  slightest,  in  as  much  as  the 
tariff  is  but  a small  item  in  the  high 
prices  of  today.  The  McKinley  tariff 
bill,  however,  favored  reciprocity 
treaties  with  South  American  countries 
that  would  not  give  away  everything  for 
nothing  and  not  injure  the  farmer  or  the 
manufacturer  to  benefit  foreign  coun- 
tries.” 

Protection  Fits  Us  for  Every  Industry. 

“Is  it  not  advisable  for  a nation  to 
make  those  products  which  its  people 
and  resources  are  best  fitted  to  manu- 
facture?” affirmed  the  young  college  stu- 
dent. “Why  not  become  efficient  like 
the  Ford  Company?” 

“How  are  we  to  tell  and  who  is  to 
determine  what  we  are  best  fitted  for?” 
declared  the  labor  leader  in  reply.  “If 
all  the  nations  should  agree  to  apportion 
out  the  business  of  the  world,  it  would 
be  necessary  to  experiment  to  find  out 
what  the  several  countries  were  best 
fitted  for.  The  first  law  of  nature  is  the 
survival  of  the  fittest,  so  that  unless  the 
younger  nations  were  to  be  protected 
under  the  competitive  conditions  that 
prevail  today,  they  would  always  remain 
drawers  of  water  and  hewers  of  wood 
for  the  powerful  countries.  The  United 
States  never  dreamt  that  it  could  manu- 
facture until  protected  from  foreign 
competition.  Europe  maintained  that 
America  should  always  be  a farming 
country,  while  industrial  enterprises  be- 
longed to  them.  But  our  colonial  fore- 
fathers disagreed  with  Europe  upon  this 
point,  for  they  learned  that  Europe 
would  only  buy  our  farm  produce  when 
she  exhausted  her  own,  so  that  between 
times  America  would  often  be  on  the 
verge  of  bankruptcy  and  in  continual  de- 
pendence on  Europe.  In  1650,  we  began 
to  protect  our  own  industries  until  in 
1710  the  English  Parliament  resolved  to 
discourage  manufacturing  among  Ameri- 
cans because  it  would  lessen  their  de- 
pendence upon  Great  Britain.  In  1719,  a 


law  was  passed  forbidding  iron  manu- 
facturing in  the  colonies.  In  1732,  all 
trading  in  American  made  hats  was  pro- 
hibited by  England.  In  1765,  Parliament 
prohibited  the  emigration  of  artisans  to 
the  colonies.  In  1781,  the  exportation 
of  woolen  machinery  from  England  to 
America  was  forbidden.  In  1782,  of 
cotton  machinery,  and  in  1785,  of  iron 
and  steel  machinery.  In  1799,  the  emi- 
gration of  miners  was  forbidden  so  that 
the  colonists  could  not  mine  coal.  In 
1792,  fifty  thousand  pounds  sterling  were 
subscribed  at  a single  meeting  at  Man- 
chester to  be  invested  in  English  goods 
and  shipped  to  this  country  to  glut  our 
market  and  blast  our  rising  manufac- 
tures. In  1816,  Lord  Henry  Brougham 
stated  in  Parliament:  ‘It  is  worth  while 
to  incur  losses  in  order  to  stifle  in  the 
cradle,  by  the  glut,  those  rising  manu- 
factures in  the  United  States,  which  the 
Revolution  forced  into  existence,  con- 
trary to  the  usual  course  of  things.’ 
Under  the  free  trade  policy,  which  Eng- 
land desired  to  force  upon  this  country, 
we  soon  became  the  laughing  stock  of 
Europe  and  -were  unable  to  make  any 
favorable  terms  of  trade,  for  all  our 
colonial  government  could  do  was  to 
offer  our  farm  products  to  the  world,  of 
which  Europe  had  often  an  over- 
abundance. Our  forefathers  soon  real- 
ized that  protection  was  necessary,  so 
in  1789  the  American  congress  passed 
a protective  tariff  law,  which  stated  it 
was  enacted  for  the  encouragement  and 
protection  of  manufactures.” 

“Today  are  not  conditions  quite  dif- 
ferent?” broke  in  the  gentleman  from 
Mississippi.  “Why  cannot  we  all  be- 
come as  efficient  as  the  Ford  Motor 
Company?” 

“The  protective  tariff  is  responsible  for 
the  Ford  Automobile  Company,”  an- 
swered the  labor  leader.  “Ten  years 
ago,  our  automobile  manufacturers 
could  not  compete  with  Europe  but 
under  protection  we  have  built  up  a 
marvelous  industry,  that  pays  three 
times  the  wage  of  the  foreign  automo- 
bile industry,  while  a ruthless  domes- 
tic competition  has  decreased  prices 
and  made  our  cars  the  cheapest 
and  the  best  in  the  world.  The  Ford 
Company  was  developed,  and  continues 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


2 3 


to  receive  the  benefit  of  protection,  but 
it  can  operate  with  less  protection  than 
all  the  other  automobile  companies  be- 
cause the  average  labor  cost  is  but  $90 
for  each  Ford  car  compared  to  $1,322.44, 
the  labor  cost  of  the  Packard  car.  As 
the  protective  tariff  covers  principally 
the  difference  in  wages  between  here  and 
abroad,  it  is  evident  that  the  Ford  car 
requires  less  protection  than  other 
American  companies.  The  profit  sharing 
system  promulgated  is  not  as  ideal  as  a 
protective  tariff,  for  the  former  pays  high 
wages  to  a few  for  working  at  high 
speed,  while  others  are  necessarily  un- 
employed, but  the  protective  tariff  gives 
as  high  wages  as  possible  to  a large 
number  of  workers.  But  lately  the  Ford 
system  was  required  to  drop  6,000  men 
temporarily,  whereas  protection  has  so 
diversified  industry  that  it  tends  to  main- 
tain steady  work  for  everybody.” 

Universal  Free  Trade  Impossible. 

“Will  not  other  nations  follow  our 
example  in  reducing  our  protective  tar- 
iff?” suggested  the  young  college  stu- 
dent. “If  we  take  the  first  step  towards 
free  trade,  as  we  did  in  the  Underwood 
law,  other  countries  will  do  likewise  and 
we  shall  all  gradually  approach  free 
trade.” 

“Foreign  nations  will  no  more  follow 
the  economic  policies  of  the  Democratic 
Party  than  they  have  the  peace  plans 
outlined  by  Secretary  Bryan,”  observed 
the  farmer.  “As  Europe  has  strength- 
ened her  armies  and  navies  for  war,  so 
is  she  doing  with  her  tariffs  for  trade. 
Upon  the  conclusion  of  the  present  Eu- 
ropean wars,  the  trade  of  the  world  will 
be  more  important  than  ever  before. 
Great  Britain  is  contributing  large  ap- 
propriations to  her  steamship  com- 
panies, while  Germany  was  enhancing 
her  trusts  to  take  advantage  of  our  low 
duties.  In  1846,  Cobden  prophesied  that 
five  years  after  England  adopted  free 
trade,  every  civilized  country  would  be 
for  tree  trade,  but  instead,  Germany, 
France,  Holland,  Russia,  Greece,  Spain, 
Italy,  China  and  Japan  have  become 
strong  protectionists,  while  free  trade 
has  ruined  English  agriculture,  increas- 
ing steadily  her  army  of  unemployed.” 

“Why  should  we  not  extend  the  free- 


dom of  trade  now  existing  among  the 
several  states  of  the  Union,  to  the  en- 
tire world,  with  a special  plea  for  the 
cultivation  of  friendly  relations?”  asked 
the  gentleman  from  Mississippi. 

“Because  as  your  senator,  John  Sharp 
Williams,  recently  stated:  ‘The  world  is 
not  yet  civilized,’  ” rejoined  the  farmer. 
“Would  we  destroy  our  military  suprem- 
acy by  removing  our  army  and  navy? 
Why  should  we  destroy  our  trade  su- 
premacy by  removing  our  protective  tar- 
iffs? The  establishment  of  free  trade 
and  tariffs  for  revenue  is  based  upon  the 
assumption  that  humanity  is  different 
from  what  it  really  is.  If  men  and 
women  were  so  perfect  that  their  love 
of  human  kind  would  banish  selfishness 
but  retain  in  them  the  same  energy,  self- 
sacrifice  and  industry  in  behalf  of  others 
that  they  would  manifest  in  behalf  of 
themselves,  then  we  might  inaugurate 
free  trade.  Since  but  one-third  of  the 
world  is  Christianized,  the  principle  of 
brotherly  love  in  trade  is  not  understood 
by  all  nations.  Does  it  imply  selfishness 
to  look  after  the  interests  of  the  country 
we  now  live  in,  when  European  wars  in- 
dicate that  even  today  the  successful 
elimination  of  all  selfish  elements  can- 
not be  accomplished  immediately?  It 
was  intense  patriotism,  not  selfishness, 
that  led  our  ancestors  to  refuse  to  buy 
or  wear  anything  of  foreign  manufac- 
ture. To  protect  our  acquisitions  and 
resources  makes  towards  progress  in 
each  community.  Even  our  United 
States  are  bound  together  in  a system  of 
mutual  protection  called  government.” 

Hard  Times  Not  Due  to  European 
Causes. 

“Is  not  depressed  business  in  this 
country  merely  a reflection  of  poor 
trade  conditions  throughout  the  world, 
due  to  European  wars  and  a periodical 
slump  in  foreign  trade?”  remarked  the 
traveling  salesman. 

“The  policy  of  protection,”  continued 
the  farmer,  “has  had  a century  and  a 
quarter  of  alternate  triumph  and  defeat. 
The  triumph  has  been  followed  by  pros- 
perity and  defeat  by  hard  times.  The 
last  business  depression  was  in  1893 
under  a revenue  tariff,  but  business  has 
been  prosperous  up  to  1913  when  another 


24 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


revenue  tariff  was  enacted.  Of  course 
European  wars  create  an  extraordinary 
condition  but  until  they  transpired,  this 
country  was  becoming  more  overcast 
with  poor  times.  Trade  conditions 
throughout  the  world  depend  more  upon 
the  United  States  than  the  United 
States  does  upon  conditions  abroad,  al- 
though Democrats  always  seize  upon 
some  occurrence  in  foreign  countries  to 
divert  attention  from  the  real  economic 
evils  in  this  country. 

“Although  the  importation  of  foreign 
products  has  been  entirely  cut  off,  or 
greatly  diminished,  because  the  develop- 
ment of  foreign  agriculture  and  industry 
is  halted  during  the  European  wars, 
nevertheless  our  independence  of  Europe 
for  supplies  under  these  conditions  is  a 
very  forceful  evidence  of  the  wisdom 
and  beneficial  results  of  the  Republican 
Protective  Tariff  policy,  in  that  it  has 
built  up  within  this  country  our  own 
home  market  with  various  industries  to 
supply  it.  There  is  no  doubt  that,  if  the 
Democratic  Tariff  policies  had  prevailed 
during  the  last  twenty  years,  our  coun- 
try today  would  be  overwhelmed  with 
distress  if  the  foreign  sources  of  our 
daily  supplies  were  so  thoroughly  cut 
off. 

“With  the  present  European  wars  oc- 
cupying foreign  countries,  conies  the 
opportunity  for  us  to  build  up  our  for- 
eign trade,  but  woe  betide  anyone  who 
in  the  confidence  of  our  present  inde- 
pendent position  should  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  we  will  retain  this  posi- 
tion for  all  future  years,  and  that  pro- 
tection is  consequently  a dead  issue.  At 
the  conclusion  of  the  present  wars,  Eu- 
ropean industries  and  agriculture  will 
again  revive  with  much  activity,  and  as 
our  markets  will  then  be  the  best  in  the 
world,  large  imports  can  be  expected, 
particularly  when  foreign  workmen  will 
.be  very  glad  indeed  to  take  the  lowest 
possible  wage  that  will  guarantee  to 
them  a daily  living.” 

Protection  and  the  Farmer. 

“May  I ask,  why  you,  a farmer,  should 
complain  about  dull  times,  when  your 
grain  crop  is  the  largest  in  the  history 
of  the  country?”  inquired  the  gentleman 
from  Mississippi. 

“Because  all  branches  of  trade  are 


interdependent,”  responded  the  farmer. 
“No  one  industry  can  live  by  itself.  If 
mines,  mills  and  factories  are  closed 
down  because  we  buy  goods  they  pro- 
duce from  foreigners,  the  buying  power 
of  mechanics  and  workmen  is  reduced  at 
the  retail  stores.  No  matter  how  large 
our  crop  may  be,  if  we  cannot  sell  it  at 
a profit,  because  people  receive  no  wages 
to  buy  it,  then  we  farmers  are  not  bene- 
fited. As  Mr.  James  J.  Hill  recently 
said:  ‘More  than  a bumper  wheat  crop 
will  be  needed  to  speed  up  the  wheels  of 
American  industry  again,  for  although 
the  bumper  grain  crop  will  go  to  the 
farmer,  this  will  not  make  business  bet- 
ter for  merchants  and  manufacturers,  for 
many  articles  are  now  paying  60  per 
cent,  duty  but  selling  here  cheaper  than 
the  American  article,  due  to  the  differ- 
ences in  wages  between  here  and 
abroad.’  The  American  farmer  sells 
about  86  per  cent,  of  his  product  at 
home,  so  that  our  home  market  is 
clearly  worth  many  times  that  of  the 
markets  of  the  world,  while  the  farmer 
also  remembers  that  he  needs  protec- 
tion for  his  products  in  as  much  as  his 
crops  arrive  later  than  those  of  foreign 
countries  and  his  land  and  farm  labor 
cost  three  to  four  times  as  much  as  the 
farm  land  and  farm  labor  of  any  other 
country.” 

“Wool  and  beef  are  today  selling  at 
higher  prices  than  under  protective  tar- 
iffs, so  what  justification  have  wool  and 
beef  dealers  for  their  claims  of  hard 
times?”  asserted  the  gentleman  from 
Mississippi. 

“Because  through  fear  of  tariff  re- 
duction, our  farmers  slaughtered  their 
sheep  and  cattle,  realizing  that  they 
could  not  compete  with  foreign  coun- 
tries. Europe  and  South  America  now 
control  our  beef  and  wool  markets  and 
with  their  monopoly,  prices  will  increase 
to  such  heights  as  they  desire,  particu- 
larly when  the  wars  in  Europe  offer  a 
good  excuse.  Free  trade  always  results 
in  surrendering  the  control  of  prices  to 
foreign  people,  who  know  us  not  when- 
ever profits  are  concerned.  The  fact 
that  prices  of  wool  and  beef  have  in- 
creased certainly  refutes  the  claim  that 
the  tariff  is  added  to  the  price  at  which 
the  articles  without  protection  would  be 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


25 


sold,  for  neither  wool  nor  beef  are  now 
protected.  In  fact  the  keen  domestic 
competition  under  protective  tariffs  had 
kept  prices  much  lower  than  they  are 
today  under  free  trade,  which  substanti- 
ates the  claims  of  protectionists,  that 
protection  means  work  and  w^ages  with 
competition  making  towards  low  prices. 
Competition  under  protection  reduced 
the  price  of  sugar  to  lower  levels  than 
ever  reached  since  the  Underwood  law 
has  been  passed.” 

Free  Trade  Theories  are  Unsound. 

“What  difference  does  it  make  whether 
we  receive  low  wages  with  cheap  prices 
under  free  trade  or  have  high  wages 
with  correspondingly  high  prices  under 
protection?”  asked  the  traveling  sales- 
man. “Is  it  not  six  of  one  and  a half 
dozen  of  the  other?” 

“If  we  have  a Democratic  tariff, 
wages  will  be  low  but  prices  may  be 
high  or  low%”  replied  the  farmer.  “When 
the  foreign  merchant  controls  our  mar- 
ket, they  will  be  high.  But  if  American 
wages  are  high  under  protection,  then 
the  American  workman  is  safe,  for  if 
prices  are  high  or  low,  he  will  always 
have  enough  to  buy  with.  The  Ameri- 
can workman  has  only  one  thing  to  sell, 
and  that  is  his  labor,  but  he  has  many 
things  to  buy,  not  only  flour,  meat  and 
clothing,  but  sugar,  coffee,  tea,  spices 
and  tobacco.  Thus  when  wages  are 
reduced  he  is  not  certain  that  prices  will 
fall,  but  when  wages  are  high  and  con- 
tinuous, he  need  not  worry  for  he  is 
assured  of  the  ability  to  buy  what  he 
needs.” 

“Could  not  workers,  who  are  unem- 
ployed, because  their  work  is  being  done 
more  cheaply  by  foreigners,  turn  to 
some  more  profitable  employment  with 
great  benefit  to  themselves?”  suggested 
the  young  college  student. 

“When  an  industry  declines  because  of 
foreign  imports,  men  are  dismissed,”  de- 
clared Bill.  “The  dismissed  men  do  not 
turn  to  some  more  profitable  employ- 
ment but  try  to  find  work  at  other  fac- 
tories of  their  trade  which  also  suffer 
from  depression  and  have  no  employ- 
ment for  additional  hands.  After  having 
tramped  the  streets  for  many  weeks,  the 
unemployed  skilled  workers  must  take 


up  any  odd  job  to  escape  starvation. 
They  then  become  porters,  general  la- 
borers, dock  laborers,  street  car  men, 
etc.  Some  sell  bootlaces  on  the  street, 
some  become  loafers,  some  go  to  the 
workhouse.  Thus  the  free  importation 
of  foreign  manufactures  constantly  de- 
grades skilled  and  highly  paid  mechan- 
ics to  the  ranks  of  casual  labor.  To 
even  think  that  an  industry  if  left  to  it- 
self will  find  the  most  useful  and  profit- 
able employment  is  wrong,  for  habit 
tends  to  lead  along  old  lines  in  prefer- 
ence to  improved  methods,  and  often 
cautious  men  are  afraid  to  venture  into 
new  business,  when  foreign  firms  make 
every  sacrifice  to  undersell  and  ruin 
them.” 

Protection  is  Constitutional. 

“But  after  all  is  said  and  done,  there 
is  no  Constitutional  authority  for  the 
imposition  of  a protective  tariff,”  de- 
clared the  gentleman  from  Mississippi. 

“The  first  tariff  bill  in  1789  showed 
that  protection  was  constitutional,”  re- 
plied the  farmer.  “In  1828,  James  Madi- 
son, who  attended  the  Constitutional 
Convention  and  had  also  helped  to  frame 
the  first  tariff  law,  wrote  to  Joseph  C. 
Cabell  that  the  constitutionality  of  pro- 
tection could  not  be  questioned.  From 
the  year  1640,  the  various  colonies  and 
states  imposed  protective  tariffs  for  the 
benefit  of  manufactures.  The  wise  men 
who  framed  our  constitution  conferred 
upon  Congress  the  right  to  ‘regulate 
commerce  with  foreign  nations’  as  well 
as  the  power  ‘to  lay  and  collect  taxes, 
duties,  imposts  and  excises.’  (Article  1, 
Section  8).  In  fact  the  constitutionality 
of  protection  was  never  doubted  by 
our  earlier  statesmen  until  the  threat- 
ened secession  of  South  Carolina.  South 
Carolina  with  slave  labor  desired  free 
trade  for  her  cotton  so  she  maintained 
that  the  protective  tariff  system  must  be 
abolished.  The  Southern  States  gradu- 
ally shifted  to  this  position,  realizing 
the  advantage  of  having  free  trade  in 
cotton,  until  at  the  time  of  the  Civil  War 
the  unconstitutionality  of  protection  was 
inserted  within  the  articles  of  confed- 
eration of  the  Southern  States.  Frank- 
lin, Washington,  Jefferson,  Madison. 
Calhoun,  Webster  and  Clay,  with  many 


26 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


other  illustrious  statesmen  have  testified 
to  the  fact  that  our  forefathers  recog- 
nized their  power  as  constitutional  when 
they  framed  the  first  tariff  act  of  1789, 
as  a protective  tariff  measure.” 

Protective  Policy  Always  Consistent. 

“But  have  not  protectionists  shifted 
the  grounds  of  their  argument  as  ex- 
pediency would  dictate?”  rejoined  the 
gentleman  from  Mississippi.  “In  colo- 
nial days,  the  claim  that  protection 
would  permit  infant  industries  to  develop 
was  the  strong  campaign  slogan;  later 
the  claim  for  a protective  tariff  was  that 
it  diversified  industries,  thereby  provid- 
ing a home  market  for  agriculture  and 
manufactures;  while  today  the  claim  is 
that  protection  equalizes  the  difference 
in  production  and  labor  costs  between 
the  United  States  and  other  countries, 
giving  work  and  wages  to  the  American 
workman.” 

“Protectionists  cannot  be  charged  with 
bad  faith  or  inconsistency,  because  the 
economic  results  of  protection  have  not 
only  been  to  build  up  infant  industries 
but  also  to  diversify  them,  establish  a 
home  market  for  their  products  and 
equalize  the  wage  scales  between  the 
United  States  and  foreign  countries  in 
such  a manner  as  to  give  work  and 
wages  to  our  working  people.  Because 
these  benefits  are  derived  from  protec- 
tion and  protectionists  claim  them  does 
not  prove  that  they  shift  from  one  argu- 
ment to  another.  As  our  industries  de- 
veloped and  our  markets  grew,  new 
phases  of  the  tariff  question  arose. 
Our  home  markets  gave  employment  to 
millions  of  workmen  so  that  in  addition 
to  the  growth  of  infant  industries, 
home  markets,  and  diversified  business, 
the  wages  of  our  employed  increased, 
thus  the  question  of  the  maintenance  of 
proper  wages  became  allied  to  that  of 
the  protective  tariff.” 

Democratic  Inconsistencies. 

“Have  the  Democrats  ever  admitted 
the  wisdom  of  protection?”  asked  the 
traveling  salesman. 

“Before  1828,  when  South  Carolina 
threatened  to  secede,  the  Democrats 
were  protectionists,  but  since  protection 
was  of  less  benefit  to  the  South,  with  its 


monopoly  of  cotton  and  slave  labor, 
Democrats  gradually  drifted  towards 
free  trade.  However,  in  1884  and  in 
1888,  they  explicitly  stated  in  their  plat- 
forms that  the  rate  of  wages  was  higher 
in  this  country  than  in  other  countries 
and  that  an  adjustment  of  tariff  rates 
must  not  deprive  American  labor  of  the 
ability  to  compete  successfully  with  for- 
eign labor;  therefore  they  promised  not 
to  impose  any  lower  rates  of  duty  than 
would  protect  the  high  rate  of  wages 
prevailing  in  this  country.  Grover 
Cleveland  upon  assuming  office  repudi- 
ated these  campaign  planks  by  en- 
deavoring to  enact  a revenue  tariff  bill.” 

“The  small  increase  in  imports  of  81 
millions  during  the  first  year  of  the  Un- 
derwood tariff  law  cannot  injure  this 
country  very  much,  particularly  when 
importations  under  protection  are  usu- 
ally very  large,”  asserted  the  gentleman 
from  Mississippi  to  the  farmer  when  he 
had  concluded. 

“Ah,  not  only  did  we  import  81  mil- 
lions more  but  our  exports  decreased 
99  millions,”  rejoined  the  farmer.  “Com- 
pared to  1912,  our  imports  under  the 
Underwood  law  increased  240  millions: 
compared  to  1909,  583  millions;  compared 
to  1908,  700  millions.  Until  the  Euro- 
pean wars  had  commenced,  the  importa- 
tion of  foreign  goods  in  large  quantities 
had  just  commenced  and  only  the  fact 
of  these  wars  prevents  millions  of  dol- 
lars’ worth  of  domestic  goods  from  being 
made  by  foreign  workmen  to  the  disad- 
vantage of  our  own  labor.  As  soon  as 
commerce  on  the  high  seas  becomes 
secure,  imports  will  again  be  dumped 
into  our  markets  from  both  foreign 
non-combatants  and  European  fighting 
nations  at  a great  price  sacrifice. 

“In  so  far  as  large  importations  of 
foreign  goods  under  protective  tariffs 
are  concerned,  we  must  learn  to  dis- 
criminate between  a large  healthful 
importation  of  foreign  goods,  which 
comes  from  the  desire  of  well  paid 
labor  to  get  the  best  in  lines  in  which 
we  may  be  excelled  by  foreigners, 
and  a large  unhealthful  importation 
under  free  trade,  because  men  purchase 
abroad  since  manufactures  are  stifled  at 
home.  This  latter  importation  is  a con- 
stant drain  on  the  country,  contrasted 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


27 


with  importations  under  protection, 
when  the  security  of  the  home  market  is 
always  maintained.” 

Future  Protective  Tariffs. 

“Should  the  rate  of  duty  under  pro- 
tective tariffs  be  equal  to  the  difference 
in  the  cost  of  production  between  the 
United  States  and  foreign  countries?” 
inquired  the  labor  leader. 

“Yes  and  a little  more,”  replied  the 
farmer.  “To  have  a tariff  duty  just  to 
equal  the  difference  in  costs  of  produc- 
tion of  various  articles  would  be  to  en- 
act a competitive  tariff  and  not  a pro- 
tective tariff.  For  if  we  should  make 
our  duties  just  equalize  the  difference 
in  productive  costs,  foreigners  will  be 
enabled  to  manufacture  abroad  and 
send  their  goods  made  by  foreign 
labor  into  the  United  States,  as  it 
costs  much  less  to  ship  by  water 
than  by  railroad.  Our  freight  charges 
would  amount  to  more  than  the  ocean 
transportation  charges  paid  by  for- 
eigners. But  by  making  our  duties 
just  a little  higher  than  the  actual 
difference  in  production  costs,  we  not 
only  give  to  Americans  an  advantage  in 
their  own  markets  but  compel  foreigners 
to  move  their  plants  to  America.  Can- 
ada is  today  forcing  our  merchants  to 
erect  mills  within  her  borders  by  just 
such  a protective  tariff  policy.  To  illus- 
trate what  I mean  by  forcing  foreign 
plants  to  come  into  this  country,  let  me 
cite  the  case  of  the  Fiat  Automobile 
Company,  which,  learning  that  the  pro- 
tective duty  upon  automobiles  was  to  be 
raised  by  the  Payne-Aldrich  law 
slightly  higher  than  the  difference  in 
costs  of  production  between  Italy  and 
the  United  States,  removed  their  factory 
from  Italy  to  Poughkeepsie,  N.  Y., 
where  American  labor  at  American 
wages  is  employed  instead  of  Italian 
labor  at  Italian  wages  in  Italy.” 

“Will  the  duties  under  protection  tend 
to  increase  or  decrease  in  the  future?” 
asked  Bill,  who  had  followed  the  con- 
versation attentively. 

“That  will  depend  upon  conditions 
throughout  the  world,”  answered  the 
farmer.  “However  under  protection  the 
actual  average  rate  upon  total  imports 
has  gradually  declined  from  44  per  cent. 


in  1869  to  18.58  per  cent,  under  the 
Payne-Aldrich  law.  Whether  the  next 
protective  tariff  law  will  have  a lower 
average  rate  than  the  Payne-Aldrich  law 
depends  upon  decreases  in  the  difference 
in  wages  between  here  and  foreign  coun- 
tries.” 

Protection  the  Best  Practical  Policy. 

“It  would  appear  to  me,”  commented 
the  traveling  salesman,  “that  the  protec- 
tive tariff  has  stimulated  production,  in- 
vention and  energetic  endeavor  on  the 
part  of  the  American  people.  It  has  di- 
versified our  industries,  planted  factories 
in  the  midst  of  farms,  created  home 
markets  for  every  kind  of  home  prod- 
ucts, developed  our  country  after  the 
Civil  War,  and  still  protects  our  labor. 
It  assures  us  bread,  by  assuring  us  em- 
ployment. Although  it  may  be  a great 
attraction  to  the  poor  to  have  Demo- 
cratic promises  of  cheap  food,  it  is  a 
greater  blessing  to  be  able  to  buy  food 
by  honest  and  respectable  employment 
under  protective  tariffs.  Every  man 
who  earns  his  bread  by  the  sweat  of  his 
brow  knows  deep  down  in  his  heart  that 
to  protect  American  agriculture,  labor 
and  capital  against  the  rest  of  the  world 
is  not  only  right  but  sensible,  necessary, 
patriotic  and  wise.  We  are  trustees  for 
future  generations  and  consequently 
should  not  waste  away  our  country  to 
experiment  with  a few  pet  theories  of 
the  Democratic  party.” 

“Correct,”  interrupted  the  labor 
leader.  “My  father  recognized  the  merit 
of  a protective  tariff  in  its  encourage- 
ment of  labor  and  industry.  As  the  head 
of  a large  household,  he  discovered  that 
his  children  would  only  work  hard  when 
it  was  absolutely  necessary.  He  there- 
upon offered  them  ten  cents  a quart  for 
all  the  blackberries  they  would  pick, 
when  the  neighbors’  children  would  have 
willingly  accepted  eight  cents  a quart. 
As  a result,  a group  of  indolent  young- 
sters developed  into  a hive  of  industry. 
Land  was  cleared,  rocks  and  stumps 
taken  out  and  the  entire  yard  cultivated 
as  a farm.  This  stimulant,  as  free  trad- 
ers would  call  it,  was  a blessing  not  only 
to  one  family  but  to  the  entire  neighbor- 
hood, which  it  transformed.” 

“Protection  aims  to  stimulate  trade,” 


28 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


said  the  farmer  as  he  turned  towards  the 
labor  leader.  “It  encourages  industry. 
You  are  correct.  There  may  be  inequali- 
ties in  the  tariff  laws  themselves  but  all 
protectionists  favor  a non-partisan  tariff 
commission  which  will  inform  us  from 
time  to  time  as  to  whether  duties  are  too 
high  or  low.  The  commission  will  also 
have  the  power  to  recommend  revision 
of  tariff  rates,  treating  each  case  upon 
its  merits,  apart  from  favoritism  and 
special  interests.” 

“Well,”  exclaimed  Bill  to  his  fellow 
travelers  as  the  discussion  was  drawing 
to  the  close,  “I  am  convinced  that  pro- 
tection is  a wise  economic  policy  for  this 
country  to  follow.  I may  not  be  able 
to  explain  why  but  I shall  always  be  a 
protectionist.  It  is  like  knowing  a tune, 
which  you  cannot  forget  but  which  keeps 
singing  and  humming  itself  in  your 
mind.  You  cannot  get  rid  of  it  to  save 
your  life,  nor  can  you  whistle  or  play  it 
but  if  any  one  else  tried  to  whistle  or 
play  it,  you  could  detect  the  false  note 
instantly  and  it  would  jar  upon  you. 
The  false  note  which  I have  detected  in 
free  trade  and  revenue  tariffs  has  been 
the  jar  I received  in  the  celluloid  busi- 
ness. One  experience  in  a lifetime  is 
enough,  so  hereafter  my  stand  will  be 
with  the  protectionists.” 

Protection  the  Best  Theoretical  Policy. 

“I  am  inclined  to  agree  with  you,” 
added  the  young  college  student,  good 
naturedly,  as  he  laughingly  turned 
toward  his  uncle,  the  farmer,  and  re- 
marked: “Your  arguments  have  been 

convincing.  Both  in  theory  and  prac- 
tice, the  maintenance  of  protection  seems 
to  be  justified.” 

“Young  men,”  declared  the  gentleman 
from  Mississippi  as  he  was  about  to 
break  away  from  the  little  party,  “you 
have  been  frightened  into  favoring  pro- 
tection. The  fear  of  foreign  competition 
as  well  as  competition  itself  with  the  low 
paid  labor  of  foreign  countries  is  purely 
imaginary,  entirely  psychological.” 

“From  your  remark,  I must  be  a psy- 
chological failure,”  suggested  Bill,  as  he 
turned  inquiringly  towards  the  staunch 
old  Democrat  from  the  South.  “Have  I 
hypnotized  myself  into  believing  that  I 


have  been  a business  failure  and  out  of 
a job  for  months?” 

But  the  gentleman  from  Mississippi 
did  not  deign  to  answer  Bill’s  observa- 
tion, but  instead  departed  jauntily  down 
the  aisle,  still  confident  that  bad  times 
existed  only  in  the  vivid  imagination  of 
Republicans,  Progressives  and  all  other 
straight  laced,  stand  pat  protectionists. 

“Well,  gentlemen,”  laughed  the  farmer, 
“we  all  seem  to  be  of  one  mind  except 
our  Southern  friend,  but  when  the  South- 
ern cotton  monopoly  is  threatened  by 
the  importation  of  cotton  cultivated  in 
foreign  lands  and  the  South  also  be- 
comes dotted  with  industrial  enterprises, 
all  Southern  gentlemen  will  re-enforce 
John  C.  Calhoun,  when  he  said,  ‘We 
should  be  a little  more  Americanized  and 
instead  of  feeding  the  laborers  of  Eng- 
land, feed  our  own.’  Protection  has 
established  for  us  an  excellent  home 
market,  diversified  by  many  varied  indus- 
tries, which  are  independent  of  Europe. 
The  present  wars  abroad  should  thor- 
oughly convince  all  our  citizens,  that  if 
for  no  other  reason,  protective  tariffs 
should  be  sustained.  To  be  at  all  de- 
pendent upon  other  nations  in  such  exi- 
gencies as  prevail  today  would  mean 
great  hardship  for  us.  Although  the 
Underwood  law  had  commenced  to  un- 
dermine the  stability  of  our  home  mar- 
ket we  should  all  be  thankful  that  pro- 
tective tariffs  since  1896  have  so 
strengthened  it  and  our  industrial  inde- 
pendence that  today  we  can  supply  our 
own  needs  while  all  Europe  is  oppressed 
with  war  and  suffering  from  starvation.” 

After  the  farmer  finished,  the  little 
group  broke  up.  The  labor  leader 
crossed  the  aisle,  resuming  his  seat,  and 
the  farmer  and  his  nephew  reversed  their 
seat.  Leaning  back,  the  traveling  sales- 
man turned  to  Bill  and  said:  “We  must 
all  agree  with  Abraham  Lincoln,  when 
he  stated  that  if  we  buy  manufactured 
goods  abroad,  we  get  the  goods  and  the 
foreigner  gets  the  money,  but  if  we 
manufacture  the  goods  at  home,  we  get 
both  the  goods  and  the  money.” 

To  which  Bill  quietly  replied:  “Abra- 
ham Lincoln  was  a sad  but  a wise  man.” 

As  the  train  rolled  on,  the  traveling 
salesman  became  absorbed  in  his  news- 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


29 


paper,  while  Bill  found  much  food  for 
thought  and  sober  reflection  by  endeav- 
oring to  determine  just  where  he  could 
cast  his  vote  in  behalf  of  protection 
where  it  might  have  the  best  effect. 


FAMOUS  MEN  ON  PROTECTION. 


Benjamin  Franklin: — “I  suggest  the 
evident  propriety  of  enabling  Congress 
to  prevent  the  importation  of  such  for- 
eign commodities  as  are  made  from  our 
own  raw  materials.  When  any  article 
can  be  supplied  at  home  upon  as  low 
terms  as  it  can  be  imported,  a manufac- 
ture of  our  own  produce  ought  not  by 
any  means  to  be  sacrificed  to  the  inter- 
ests of  foreign  trade  or  subjected  to  in- 
jury by  the  wild  speculations  of  ignorant 
adventurers.” 

George  Washington: — “The  safety  and 
interest  of  a free  people  require  that 
they  should  promote  such  industries  as 
would  render  them  independent  of  other 
nations  for  essential,  particularly  mili- 
tary, supplies.” 

Alexander  Hamilton: — “It  is  expedi- 
ent to  develop  a home  market.  Theories 
of  free  trade  are  all  right  but  not  prac- 
tical, since  the  conduct  of  other  nations 
is  not  guided  by  free  trade  principles. 
Since  the  foreign  demand  for  foodstuffs 
is  always  uncertain,  therefore  manufac- 
tures and  agriculture  in  the  United 
States  should  supplement  each  other. 
Protection  creates  a home  market  for 
our  own  goods,  establishes  new  indus- 
tries and  protects  those  already  estab- 
lished.” 

John  Adams: — “The  United  States 
must  repel  trade  monopolies  with  trade 
monopolies  and  commercial  regulations 
by  commercial  regulations.” 

Thomas  Jefferson: — “We  have  experi- 
enced what  we  did  not  then  believe,  that 
there  exists  both  profligacy  and  power 
among  foreign  nations  to  exclude  us 
from  the  field  of  interchange  with  other 
nations.  To  be  independent  for  the 
comforts  of  life,  we  must  fabricate  them 
ourselves.  Shall  we  make  our  own  com- 
forts or  go  without  them  at  the  will  of 


a foreign  nation?  He,  therefore,  who  is 
now  against  domestic  manufactures 
must  be  for  reducing  us,  either  to  a de- 
pendence on  foreigners  or  to  be  clothed 
in  skins  and  live  like  wild  beasts  in  dens 
and  caverns.  If  those  who  quote  me  dif- 
ferently will  keep  pace  with  me  in  pur- 
chasing nothing  foreign,  when  equiva- 
lent of  domestic  fabrics  can  be  obtained, 
notwithstanding  price,  it  will  not  be  our 
fault  if  we  do  not  have  a supply  at  home 
equal  to  our  demand  and  wrest  control 
from  foreigners.” 

James  Madison: — “There  is  a rage  for 
high  duties,  which  is  hard  to  resist,  for 
until  all  other  nations  concur  in  free 
trade  the  interests  of  the  United  States 
will  be  best  promoted  by  further  restric- 
tions and  high  protective  duties.” 

James  Monroe: — “Satisfied,  I am, 
whatever  may  be  the  abstract  doctrine 
in  favor  of  free  trade,  provided  all  na- 
tions would  concur  in  it  and  it  was  not 
liable  to  be  interrupted  by  war,  wThich 
situation  has  never  occurred  and  cannot 
be  expected,  that  additional  protection 
should  be  afforded  to  those  articles 
which  are  connected  with  the  independ- 
ence of  the  country.” 

John  Quincy  Adams: — “Under  a pro- 
tective tariff  the  nation  has  risen  from  a 
death  of  weakness,  imbecility  and  dis- 
tress to  an  eminence  of  prosperity,  un- 
exampled in  the  annals  of  the  world.” 

Andrew  Jackson: — “Adequate  protec- 
tion should  be  extended  to  our  farmers, 
manufacturers  and  laborers,  so  that  they 
may  be  placed  in  fair  competition  with 
Europe.  A careful  tariff  is  wanted  to 
pay  our  national  debt  and  afford  us 
safety  and  liberty,  and,  last  but  not  least, 
give  a proper  distribution  to  our  labor 
which  must  prove  beneficial  to  the  hap- 
piness, independence  and  wealth  of  our 
community.” 

Henry  Clay: — “The  greatest  want  of 
civilized  society  is  a market  for  the  sale 
and  exchange  of  our  product.  This 
market  may  exist  at  home  or  abroad,  but 
it  must  exist  somewhere,  if  society  pros- 
pers. The  home  market  is  of  first  im- 


3° 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


portance,  for  we  can  never  depend  upon 
the  foreign  market.” 

Daniel  Webster: — “The  true  way  to 
protect  the  poor  is  to  protect  their  labor. 
Give  us  work  and  protect  our  earnings. 
In  Europe,  the  question  is  how  men  can 
live?  With  us,  the  question  is  how  well 
they  can  live?  Protection  touches  every 
man’s  bread,  for  where  there  is  work  for 
the  hands  of  men,  there  will  be  work  for 
their  teeth.” 

John  C.  Calhoun: — “Under  protection, 
the  farmer  will  find  a ready  market  for 
his  surplus  produce  and  what  is  almost 
of  equal  consequence  a certain  and 
cheap  supply  for  all  his  wants.  Protec- 
tion will  greatly  increase  our  mutual  de- 
pendence and  intercourse,  for  it  is  time 
we  should  become  a little  more  Ameri- 
canized and  instead  of  feeding  the  labor- 
ers of  England  feed  our  own.” 

Millard  Fillmore: — “Our  gold  pro- 
duced in  California  is  now  going  to  for- 
eign countries  in  payment  of  goods  pur- 
chased abroad.  In  the  meantime,  due  to 
the  removal  of  protection,  our  manufac- 
turing plants  are  broken  down  by  com- 
petition with  foreigners,  the  capital  in- 
vested in  them  is  lost,  thousands  of 
honest  and  industrious  citizens  are 
thrown  out  of  employment  and  the 
farmer  to  that  extent  is  deprived  of  a 
home  market  for  the  sale  of  his  produce. 
This  destruction  of  home  competition 
has  enabled  the  foreign  manufacturer  to 
advance  the  price  of  his  goods.” 

Abraham  Lincoln: — “When  we  buy 
manufactured  goods  abroad  we  get  the 
goods  and  the  foreigner  gets  the  money. 
When  we  buy  manufactured  goods  at 
home,  we  get  both  the  goods  and  the 
money.” 

U.  S.  Grant: — “The  American  system 
of  locating  mills  next  to  the  plow  and 
the  pasture  has  produced  a result  no- 
ticeable by  the  intelligent  portion  of  all 
commercial  nations.” 

Horace  Greeley: — “The  ten  years 
(1824-1834),  when  the  protective  tariff 
was  predominant,  were  onwardly  and 


generously  prosperous.  No  opponent  of 
protection  can  show  any  ten  successive 
years  as  uniformly  prosperous.” 

James  A.  Garfield: — “Protection  has 
made  us  industrially  independent  with  a 
steady,  healthy  growth.” 

James  G.  Blaine: — “Under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  new  protective  system,  de- 
spite the  sudden  outburst  of  a great  civil 
war  and  all  the  evils  that  accompanied 
it,  including  the  industrial  paralysis  of 
the  eleven  seceded  States,  the  country 
was  enabled  to  sustain  itself  and  to  re- 
vive and  increase  in  an  extraordinary  de- 
gree its  manufacturing  industries,  and 
generally  to  enter  upon  a course,  which, 
for  nearly  twenty-eight  years  which 
close  the  century  of  our  tariff  experience, 
has  given  to  the  United  States  a pros- 
perity beyond  that  ever  enjoyed  by  any 
country,  ancient  or  modern,  in  this  hem- 
isphere or  the  other,  upon  any  continent 
or  upon  the  isles  of  the  sea.” 

Benjamin  Harrison: — “I  believe  that 
the  protective  system  has  been  a mighty 
instrument  for  the  development  of  our 
national  wealth  and  a most  powerful 
agency  in  protecting  the  homes  of  our 
workingmen.” 

William  McKinley: — “This  policy  of 
protection  must  be  maintained  and  con- 
tinued, because  it  represents  to  us  the 
highest  possible  civilization  and  the  best 
and  noblest  destiny.  They  talk  about 
things  being  cheaper  from  the  other 
side.  There  is  nothing  cheap  from 
abroad  to  this  people  that  means  idle- 
ness among  ourselves.  A revenue  tariff 
levels  down;  a protective  tariff  levels  up. 
A revenue  tariff  would  cheapen  products 
by  cheapening  men;  a protective  tariff 
would  cheapen  products  by  elevating 
men  and  getting  from  them  their  best 
skill,  their  best  genius,  their  best  inven- 
tion.” 

William  H.  Taft: — “The  present  busi- 
ness system  of  the  country  rests  on  the 
protective  tariff  and  any  attempt  to 
change  it  to  a free  trade  basis  will  cer- 
tainly lead  to  disaster.” 


THE  NEW  FEED  ’EM 


3i 


Theodore  Roosevelt: — “Every  class  of 
our  people  has  benefited  by  the  protec- 
tive tariff.  During  the  last  few  years  the 
merchant  has  seen  the  export  trade  of 
this  country  grow  faster  than  ever  in 
our  previous  history.  The  manufacturer 
could  not  keep  his  factory  running  if  it 
were  not  for  the  protective  tariff.  The 
purchasing  power  of  the  average  wage 
received  by  the  wage-worker  has  grown 
faster  than  the  cost  of  living,  and  this  in 
spite  of  the  continual  shortening  of 
working  hours.  The  accumulated  sav- 
ings of  the  working  men  of  the  country, 
as  shown  by  the  deposits  in  the  savings 
banks,  have  increased  by  leaps  and 
bounds. 

“The  farmer  has  benefited  quite  as 
much  as  the  manufacturer,  the  merchant 
and  the  wage-worker.  American  farm- 
ers have  prospered  because  the  growth 
of  their  market  has  kept  pace  with  the 
growth  of  their  farms.  The  men  on 
those  six  million  farms  receive  from  the 
protective  tariff  what  they  most  need, 
and  that  is  the  best  of  all  possible 
markets. 

“The  genuine,  underlying  principle  of 
protection  has  worked  out  results  so 
beneficial,  so  evenly  and  widely  spread, 


so  advantageous  alike  to  farmers  and 
capitalists  and  workingmen,  to  com- 
merce and  trade  of  every  kind,  that  the 
American  people  if  they  show  their 
usual  practical  business  sense,  will  in- 
sist that  when  these  laws  are  modified 
they  shall  be  modified  with  the  utmost 
care  and  conservatism,  and  by  the 
friends  and  not  the  enemies  of  the  pro- 
tective system.  They  cannot  afford  to 
trust  the  modification  to  those  who  treat 
protection  and  robbery  as  synonymous 
terms.” 

Napoleon  Bonaparte: — “If  a nation 
were  made  of  adamant  it  would  be 
crushed  to  powder  by  free  trade.” 

Bismarck: — “Let  Germany  imitate  the 
tariff  system  of  the  United  States,  be- 
cause it  is  my  deliberate  judgment  that 
the  prosperity  of  America  is  mainly  due 
to  its  system  of  protective  laws.” 

Joseph  Chamberlain: — “Those  coun- 
tries which  have  adopted  protection 
have  improved  in  a greater  ratio  and 
more  rapidly  than  we  have  ourselves  in 
England.” 


THE  FREE  TRADE  MILLENIUM 


Iiis  head  wuz  full  er  theories; 
he  talked  ’em  by  the  job; 

His  speech  w’en  shelled  was  one  part 
corn  an’  ninety-nine  parts  cob. 

It  sounded  purty;  some  o’  the  boys 
they  said  ’twas  jest  immense; 

“The  sound’s  all  right,”  sez  I to  them, 
“but  where  in  time’s  the  sense?” 

He  called  purtection  “robbery,” 
like  all  the  Cobden  school, 

He  said  free  trade  wuz  righteousness, 
the  modern  golden  rule. 

“Is’t  right  ter  rob  your  wife  and  kids,” 
sez  I ter  him,  “is’t  right 

For  foriners  to  git  our  work 
while  we  must  starve  or  fight?” 

“It’s  sound  economy,”  sez  he, 

“to  let  the  cheapest  sell.” 

Sez  I,  “My  friend,  that  barb’rous  rule 
would  drag  us  down  to  hell. 

Ter  purtect  yer  home  and  famberly 
may  be  a deadly  sin — 

But  them’s  jest  the  kind  er  sinners 
thet  St.  Peter  passes  in.” 


“Free  trade  ’ud  save  fer  you,”  sez  he, 
“on  food,  an’  doe’s  an’  rent.” 

Sez  I,  “Meat’s  dear  ’t  a cent  a pound 
’f  ye  haven’t  got  no  cent. 

Free  trade  it  robs  yer  wallet 
an’  steals  yer  meat  an’  corn, 

An’  offers  ye  big  bargain  sales, 
w’en  all  yer  money’s  gone.” 

I ast  him,  “Wouldn’t  a pauper 
find  it  purty  middlin’  hard 
To  be  a dude  with  trouserin’s 
at  thirteen  cents  a yard? 

We’d  wear  di’mon’  studs  fer  buttons 
if  they  sol’  ’em  fer  a nickel, 

But  if  we  had  no  money 

we’d  be  in  the  same  ol’  pickle.” 

“Free  trade  will  usher  in,”  sez  he, 
“the  gran’  mellennial  age 
Foretol’  by  seers  an’  prophets 
ez  the  worl’s  gret  heritage.” 

“Oh,  w’en  the  big  mellennium  comes 
’twill  be  all  right,”  sez  I, 

“W’en  our  rivers  flow  ’ith  honey 
an’  our  shade  trees  bloom  ’ith  pie; 


W’en  the  angels  drop  down  manna 
from  the  bendin’  firmerment: 

An’  we  hoi’  our  han’s  an’  take  it 
an’  don’t  have  to  pay  a cent; 
W’en  food  drops  in  our  open  jaws 
w’ile  loafin’  in  the  shade, 

W’y  then  ’twill  be  a bully  time 
to  interduce  free  trade.” 


3 0112  105909516 


